In a certain respect, we should probably give Rudy Giuliani the benefit of the doubt over the news that he will be attending this year's 9/11 anniversary remembrance at Ground Zero: after all, he has attended every previous year's event. But now he's a candidate for president -- and he'll be the first and only candidate for office to make an appearance at any of the commemorations. As such, he stands to politicize the event, especially given the importance of 9/11 mythology to his campaign strategy.

Unsurprisingly, many victims' relatives are outraged:

"He's cashing in on 9/11 like it's his own personal tragedy. It's a photo op on a campaign swing for him," said Jimmy Riches, a deputy fire chief whose son was among the 343 firefighters killed.

Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was also killed, said she was stunned that the city would ask a presidential candidate to speak there.

"They should have every other single presidential candidate then, because this is outrageous," Regenhard said. "This is going to be seen across the country as a blanket endorsement from us. It's totally inappropriate."

No declared presidential candidate has ever spoken before at the ground zero ceremony; indeed, candidates running for local office have typically suspended campaigning on Sept. 11.

Of course, given how far in advance potential presidential candidates lay their plans, who's to say he wasn't campaigning in previous appearances? But by now any plausible deniability has evaporated: Rudy Giuliani is a candidate for president, in the thick of campaign season, and as such his presence at a solemn, nonpolitical remembrance ceremony is inappropriate. If he wishes to commemorate the victims -- as he should, and as we all should -- he should do so privately.

(Cross-posted at The Right's Field)

Taking a brief break from the Roger Stone saga for a moment of Andy Rooney-esque crankiness...

Clyde Haberman writes today about the dueling anti-flyer legislation in Albany and the City Council. Governor Spitzer signed a bill into law last week, but Councilmember Simcha Felder promises to revive his own proposal if what he sees as flaws in the new law aren't addressed. Whatever works, I say -- those soggy mounds of unsolicited supermarket ads are an environmentally-malign nuisance.

Haberman says:

Safety aside, laws like this satisfy a certain Garboesque streak in New Yorkers. Sure, they accept the city’s hubbub, even embrace it. But there is also a part of them that just wants to be left alone:

Enough with panhandlers hounding them on the weary subway ride home. Enough with loud cellphone yakkers on the bus. Enough with phone solicitors interrupting dinner.  read more »

Roger Stone, Republican astroturfer and Joe Bruno surrogate, is a nasty piece of work:

Lawyers representing Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s father, Bernard Spitzer, say a prominent political consultant who has been working for State Senate Republicans threatened the elder Mr. Spitzer this month in an anonymous, invective-laced phone message.

The allegations against the consultant, Roger J. Stone Jr., were laid out in a letter sent Tuesday to Senator George H. Winner Jr., an upstate Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.

What kind of man is Stone? The kind who would say these things to an 83-year-old man:

In the message, the caller says, referring to a potential subpoena: “There is not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho, piece-of-shit son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth and the fact that your son’s a pathological liar will be known to all.”

What does he say in his defense? That, obviously, Spitzer's people infiltrated his apartment and simulated his voice to make the calls. Seriously, that's what he's claiming. I'm surprised he didn't try to pin the blame on the CIA, the Trilateral Commission, and the World Wildlife Fund.

Via Andrew Sullivan: here's a frightening little map from the Atlantic archives, breaking down America by county and rating the percentage of structurally deficient bridges. Red, as you might guess, is the worst. And what's that state where every single county is red? Oy vey.

 read more »

Susan Milligan of the Boston Globe reports on the danger that Rudy Giuliani's candidacy will end up being defined by a single issue (9/11, of course) and why such an approach could falter down the road, as voters ask for something more -- for instance, an Iraq war policy.

Particular credit to Milligan for mentioning the fact that here in New York there are a lot of people who consider his claim to 9/11 heroism totally fraudulent. The article actually features a nice juxtaposition, citing out-of-state sentiments like this:

"He took control," said Carolyn Mercadante , 70, a Delaware voter who came to see Giuliani speak. "Just the fact that he was such a presence there" in New York the day of the attacks, said 67-year-old Bill Uranko of Middleton, Del., when asked to explain what impressed him about Giuliani's Sept.11 performance. "You could see he was visibly moved by what happened.

...and contrasting them with the far different things you'll hear from New Yorkers, for instance:  read more »