Most Americans are familiar with the heroic narrative involving New York city mayor Rudy Guiliani and his actions on 9/11. As the horror unfolded on that tragic day, Rudy was everywhere; walking the streets covered in dust and ash from the fallen towers, before the cameras trying to both assure the citizens of New York while hammering home the fact that casualties from the attack would be “more than we can bear.” His presence – both commanding and calming at the same time – established a public personae of a no-nonsense, take charge guy with compassion and empathy for the victims and a cool, unflappable style that assured Americans far beyond the borders of New York city.

That’s because, for all intents and purposes, Rudy Guiliani was the face of the United States government for those first few hours in the aftermath of the attacks. While the President was being shuttled around by the Secret Service to secure locations across the country, the calm visage of the New York Mayor appearing on television before the press or walking the devastated streets of his beloved city was the only connection the American people watching at home had with someone in charge.

This part of the narrative is what Guiliani and his handlers will want the American people to see and remember once the former mayor announces his candidacy for President of the United States. No one can take this away from Guiliani. By any standard, he performed magnificently in his role as the voice of sanity and reason when everything around him seemed insane and unreal.

But there’s more to the story, of course. And beyond what Guiliani did or didn’t do before and after 9/11 is the question regarding the propriety of using the attacks as a launching pad for a Presidential campaign. Would Guiliani, a high profile mayor of the second largest city in the country, even be considered presidential material if not for his actions on that awful day?

And what about Rudy’s actions in the years prior to 9/11 that some say contributed mightily to the death toll in the towers that day? The antiquated New York emergency services communications system shattered under the city-wide disaster – some say as a consequence of the mayor’s inattentiveness and shortsightedness.

There are also questions swirling around the mayor’s decisions in those first critical minutes after the planes hit the towers. Arriving near the scene of the tragedy, Guiliani, (some believe while using 20/20 hindsight) should have worked harder to establish better coordination of all the first responders. The lack of a unified command structure between police and firefighters at the scene may have contributed to the high death toll say critics.

The 9/11 Commission, cognizant of the political ramifications of being too hard on Guiliani (and the New York authorities in general) ended up glossing over this “two post” command structure where the firefighters and police had separate command centers on scene. But the questions remain. And herein lies Guiliani’s dilemma.

If Rudy makes his 9/11 narrative the centerpiece of his campaign, he opens the door to the kind of scrutiny of his actions that day which will almost certainly tarnish that legend. Questions he has been successfully able to fend off for 6 years will now demand answers. Why were firefighter radios inoperative in the chaos? Why was the emergency service command post set up at the World Trade Centers? Why were there no protocols for responding to a high rise fire or terrorist attack?

These questions were asked in a book by two liberal New York writers for the Village Voice in Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11. Dan Collins and Wayne Barrett, using information from several authorities including the 9/11 Commission, detail nearly a decade of inattention to the threat of a terrorist attack by the Guiliani administration as well as some disturbing actions following that tragic day regarding the safety of workers tasked with cleaning up at Ground Zero. A spokesman for the Mayor countered that more than 25,000 people were evacuated safely on 9/11 due in no small part to Rudy’s leadership.

What, if anything, can Rudy do to both frame his candidacy using 9/11 as a backdrop while avoiding the pitfalls that the inevitable increased scrutiny of his actions would engender?

Apparently, Rudy is going to try and maximize his 9/11 personae to the fullest, even going so far as to recruit families of 9/11 victims as supporters:

Supporters of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani have started discussions with relatives of 9/11 victims about backing him if he runs for president in 2008, some family members told The Post.

The conversations have taken place in recent weeks, according to some victims’ families, who described the talks as “casual.”

Marian Fontana, who lost her firefighter husband on 9/11, said she got an invitation to go to a Giuliani exploratory committee dinner last week from a former firefighter working with Giuliani’s committee. She described the invite as “last-minute.”

Fontana said she was appreciative of what Giuliani did after 9/11, but would want to know a lot more about any candidate’s stand on a variety of issues.

I see nothing inherently wrong with this strategy. Especially since the opposition is already lining up to savage him on the issue:

But some relatives who are anti-Giuliani are already planning “Swiftboat”-type attacks against the ex-mayor – modeled on the negative campaign against John Kerry in 2004 by his fellow Vietnam vets. It seems likely that 9/11 kin could help Giuliani counter that criticism.

Some 9/11 family members have been deeply critical of Giuliani, blaming him for communications failures the day of the attacks.

Others have faulted his administration for allegedly not doing enough to protect rescue and recovery workers from polluted air at Ground Zero.

And it is a dead certainty that the 9/11 “Truthers” – the paranoid nutcases who posit all sorts of conspiracy theories surrounding that terrible day – will be out in full force, piggybacking their crackpot ideas on the opposition to Guiliani wherever and whenever they get a chance. This may actually play into Guiliani’s hands in that the Truthers may discredit some of the opposition to his candidacy.

But the press will almost certainly be relentless in their pursuit of Guiliani – especially in the matter of the post-9/11 health issues of workers at Ground Zero. The question of adequate safeguards for those workers and the subsequent rash of respiratory ailments and deaths was even highlighted by President Bush in his State of the Union Speech. Did Guiliani sacrifice workers’ health in the interest of getting the site cleaned up? This question and others will dog his campaign unless he is willing to address the issues frontally.

And this is something he may be unwilling to do. Rudy will be walking an extremely fine line between exploiting 9/11 and downplaying his role in that day’s drama. Americans don’t like braggarts for president so Guiliani will probably have others touting his positive contributions in the disaster. It is ironic however, that he himself will probably have to deal directly with the criticisms, answering questions early on in order to tamp down any possibility that the criticisms will get in the way of his message. Whether he can use this platform to sharpen his message regarding his leadership and competence as well as his toughness and willingness to make big decisions remains to be seen.

He will also have to deal with the perception that using 9/11 as a catalyst for his campaign may be taken as unseemly. If he goes too far, his opponents will let him have it. If he doesn’t go far enough, he risks having the narrative disappear from the campaign altogether.

The press as referee will collectively decide what is appropriate and what isn’t. Given their penchant for creating controversy and knocking down frontrunners, it wouldn’t surprise me if the attacks on Guiliani’s 9/11 legend started immediately following any formal announcement of his candidacy. As we are seeing with Senator Obama, once you throw your hat in the ring, it’s open season and may the devil take the last reporter who jumps off the bandwagon.

Fair or not, ready or not, Guiliani will be dealing with these issues in the coming weeks. How he responds will not only determine whether he can become President but also what kind of a President he might end up being.

The strange and bizarre saga of William Arkin endures as the Military Affairs columnist and blogger for the Washington Post continues to offer up explanations for what he really meant in his January 30th post savaging the American military.

Yesterday, Arkin posted an incoherent defense of his position that referred to his critics as “arrogant and intolerant” while furiously trying to backtrack from his original thoughts by lying about what he said in the January 30th post.

Not surprisingly, this didn’t work very well. In fact, a couple of hours after the response to his critics was posted, it was hastily taken down. Someone somewhere at WaPo may have seen Arkin’s response as not only inadequate but insulting as well and subsequently removed the offending post from Arkin’s webpage.

Arkin proved himself nothing if not dogged by posting a second, less inflammatory but still incoherent response to his critics that still contains obvious falsehoods about what he said in the original post while saying that he knew all along that his words would draw a huge negative reaction and that he did it on purpose to get a dialogue started on the issue of the military being put on a pedestal:

I knew when I used the word “mercenary” in my Tuesday column that I was being highly inflammatory.

NBC News ran a piece in which enlisted soldiers in Iraq expressed frustration about waning American support.

I intentionally chose to criticize the military and used the word to incite and call into question their presumption that the public had a duty to support them. The public has duties, but not to the American military.

So I committed blasphemy, and for this seeming lack of respect and appreciation for individuals in uniform, I have been roundly criticized and condemned.

Mercenary, of course, is an insult and pejorative, and it does not accurately describe the condition of the American soldier today. I sincerely apologize to anyone in the military who took my words literally.

Long time readers of this site know that I rarely use profanity in a post but Arkin’s words impel me to make an exception:

What a crock of sh*t.

Everything he writes rings hollow. I don’t believe for one minute he could have possibly sensed the firestorm of controversy that erupted over his insults. And his “apology” – that he’s sorry anyone in the military took his words “literally” – is a shocking prevarication.

He didn’t just use the word “mercenary” in passing. He used it as part of what passes for humor on the left. It was a deliberate smear – the kind that keeps you in good standing with the anti-war crowd. It is a wink and a nod at the hard left, telling them that he agrees with them but that the mask must stay on so that the slack jawed, goober chewing, shotgun toting, mouthbreathers in the hinterlands don’t get their panties in a bunch:

But it is the United States, and the recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary – oops sorry, volunteer – force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

In effect, he was telling his friends on the left to take the insult literally while maintaining a certain deniability by making an awkward bon mot out of the phrase.

Where Arkin refuses to back down is in his belief that the American soldier shouldn’t be dissing the home folks – not when patriots like him “support” them:

Those in uniform who think about and speak out about this predicament are rightly frustrated and angry. Many seem to find some solace in blaming the media or anti-war “leftists” or the Democratic Party or the liberals, or even an ungrateful or insufficiently martial American public.

But if those in the military are now going to argue that we are losing in Iraq because the military has lacked for Ssomething, then the absence of such support should be placed at the feet of the Bush administration, Rumsfeld and company, and a Republican Congress—not on the shoulders of the American public, who have been nothing but supportive, even those who have opposed the war…

In the middle of all of this are the troops, the pawns in political battles at home as much as they are on the real battlefield. We unquestioningly “support” these troops for the very reasons that they are pawns. We give them what we can to be successful, and we have a contract with them, because they are our sons and daughters and a part of us, not to place them in an impossible spot

Is it “solace” those men on the NBC report were seeking? It sounded to me like they were seeking an answer to a very good question – a question that Arkin refuses to even try and answer (except by muddying the waters by saying they shouldn’t be asking questions in the first place): How can you “support the troops” without supporting their mission?

Arkin is silent on this point except to say that of course you can be supportive of the men while opposing the war! How dare you even raise the question!

No explanation. Just platitudes about free speech – a curious defense given his scolding of the soldiers themselves for speaking out. I agree with Arkin that it is possible to be a patriotic American and oppose the war and agitate for bringing the troops home now. And while we shouldn’t question their patriotism, we damn well can question their judgement. Of course, they can similarly question the judgement of those of us who support our continued deployment. This is called democratic debate. Perhaps Arkin has forgotten how that works and that the soldiers also have every right to participate.

All of this comes back to the mask being worn by Arkin and many on the left and how it hides their true feelings about the military and the United States in general. At the beginning of the war, we heard much from our lefty friends about how this time, unlike what happened in Viet Nam, they wouldn’t blame the war on the troops. No spitting please. No calling them “baby killers.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that they don’t really think that. They’re just not going to make the political error this time around of getting the rest of the American people angry at them for what they truly believe.

This why it is impossible for Arkin and others to answer the simple question posed by the soldiers. There literally is no answer because the soldiers are correct. But for very good political reasons, most of the anti-war crowd will obfuscate and set up straw men about “free speech” rather than give a direct response. Simply saying that it is possible to support the troops while opposing their mission doesn’t cut it. By putting the onus on the troops for asking it, Arkin tries to shift the focus from the obvious answer – he doesn’t “support” the troops or the war effort – to why the interlocutor was wrong for inquiring in the first place. They are “intimidating” the American people or they are “blaming” the citizenry for our failures in Iraq by asking the question.

We got a glimpse of Arkin’s mindset yesterday from this exchange that Michelle Malkin transcribed from an interview conducted by Fox’s John Gibson on his radio show yesterday:

GIBSON: The general tone of this piece is that the troops owe us, that we continue to support them through the war that they are losing.

ARKIN: Oh, come on, John, that’s your characterization! (Voice rising) I don’t say they owe us anything! I just say that when the troops start to express their dissatisfaction with the American public, they should look in the mirror and ask themselves whether or not the American public is their servant or they’re the servant of the American public. (Voice louder) I nowhere suggested that the troops shouldn’t have the right to speak up. I merely said we shouldn’t put them on such a pedestal that they are above criticism IF THEY SAY STUPID THINGS!

GIBSON: Well, what is so stupid about…[plays NBC segment…Staff Sergeant: “If they’re going to support us, support us all the way.”]

GIBSON: What is so wrong…

ARKIN: (Going bananas, sputtering at top of his lungs) HE’S JUST TOTALLY WRONG, JOHN. PEOPLE CAN SUPPORT THE TROOPS AND NOT SUPPORT THE WAR. AND THE FACT THAT THESE GUYS IN UNIFORM DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT TELLS ME THAT THEY ARE BADLY SCHOOLED IN THE REALITIES OF [unintelligible]...

Note that Arkin still makes no attempt to answer the question of how one can support the troops without supporting the war. He simply states it as fact – as if it were as much a part of the natural world as the sun rising and setting. No explanation needed. And his contention that he never asked the troops to shut up is patently false. In his original post, he hoped that their commanding officer took them aside and read them the riot act:

I’m all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn’t for them to disapprove of the American people.

He is clearly saying – despite his caveat about his supporting the idea of “everyone expressing their opinion” – that it “wasn’t for them” (not their place) to disapprove of the American people.

This does indeed sound like he thinks they shouldn’t be able to express an opinion on the subject despite his hollow nod to the First Amendment. No amount of explaining. No attempt to set up additional straw men will change that singular fact. The only thing he can do is apologize – something Mr. Arkin seems intent on avoiding at all costs.

In my post yesterday, I wrote that I was going to email the editor and publisher, asking them to fire Mr. Arkin. I didn’t do it because of this post by Don Surber that made me change my focus. I don’t think it’s necessarily “stupid” to ask for his resignation but I get Don’s point about not stifling debate. Arkin didn’t quite go far enough in his insults to warrant removal. But I don’t think it too much to ask for his apology – a full, honest, and complete mea culpa for the disrespect he showed to our people in uniform.