The Greatness That Was Giuliani

...And yet there he was, only hours later, standing before cameras and offering a kind of strong reassurance the country had yet to receive from any public official...

...I want the people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country and the rest of the world that terrorism can't stop us...

...I do think this will forever . . . change the way I see this mayor...

...When Giuliani announced plans in 1998 for a multimillion-dollar center to coordinate city and federal agencies in the event of a major terrorist disruption, he was accused of wanting to set up a "bunker...

...He's done it by making clear that what had seemed like an ungovernable city was in fact governable in all ways—if only by the sheer force of will he could bring to the job...

...He was elected in 1993 to bring order to a city on the verge of civil collapse, and he hasn't just done it through his brilliant stewardship of the police department...

...Trapped in a building near the World Trade Center, Giuliani had to keep his head about him in order to find his way to safety, helping others along the way...

...The plan Giuliani and his team devised on the fly was brilliant...

...He seemed so much the human being— struggling with his own losses, but most importantly staying strong for this city...

...For if indeed one man proved he could govern a city that seemed ungovernable before him, then any man can govern the city—provided he believes in the right things and does the right things at the right times...

...Now the bunker itself, located in one of the ancillary World Trade CenJohn Podhoretz is a columnist for the New York Post and a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...

...Ed Koch, who supported Rudy and then came to hate him so much he wrote a book about his successor called Giuliani: Nasty Man, said: "There's no question many people who disliked him personally but admired his work have been converted...

...Still, Giuliani's mayoralty has been so successful, and his stewardship of the city during the past week so heartening, that it offers hope for the future...

...BY JOHN PODHORETZ WHAT RUDY GIULIANI DID last week in the aftermath of the attack on New York was not all that different from what he has done in the midst of any crisis during his mayoralty...

...But it's the rarest of men whose mere image on television offers the powerful consolation of calm leadership in a nightmarish time...

...it is possible to ascribe the social peace to the wonderful elan shown by New Yorkers after this catastrophe, but it is far more likely that the NYPD's powerhouse reputation contributed to quelling any trouble before trouble could start...

...In each case—a terrible fire, a water-main break, the crash of TWA Flight 800, a neighborhood blackout—he dons the garb of an emergency worker, tours the scene, gathers the heads of his agencies, designs a plan of action, and then makes public appearances during which he informs the city about what is going on in exhaustive detail...

...In the first few days of this crisis, it was the mayor of the city of New York who offered that consolation...

...New Yorkers of all political stripes have rallied to Giuliani...

...As it happens, the primary to choose the Democratic and Republican candidates for the upcoming mayoral election had been underway for almost three hours on September 11 when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center...

...ter buildings, has been destroyed as a result of a terrorist plot that the most paranoid among us could never have dreamed up...

...For instance: Arab neighborhoods in Brooklyn were flooded with police officers to prevent the outbreak of any rioting or casual violence...

...The choice of the word "bunker," with its Hitlerish associations, was all too intentional...

...And the only substantial inconvenience from interrupted subway and transportation service has been for those (like me) who live in southwestern Brooklyn...

...They determined that the best way to keep the city running was immediately to evacuate and cordon off the bottom three miles of Manhattan...

...The mere fact that millions of New Yorkers felt safe enough to ride the subways after the events of last week is testimony to the almost unimaginable change in the city's consciousness over the seven years and nine months of the Giuliani mayoralty...

...There is no chance that the fences Giuliani built around City Hall will ever be removed—despite the fact that all of the mayoral candidates seeking to succeed him had promised to tear them down...

...A city council-woman named Christine Quinn, who won her office by proving to her constituents in Chelsea that she was the most gay candidate in the race, told the Daily News: "I feel a level of empathy and connection with the mayor I never felt before...

...We will strive now to save as many people as possible and to send a message that the city of New York and the United States of America is much stronger than any group of barbaric terrorists," he said...

...He had to collect himself to do his job, only to learn that three of the four most senior members of the city's fire department had been killed—heartbreaking news that would soon be followed by word that they had been joined in certain death by another 300 firefighters and scores of police officers as well...

...And he does all this within a couple of hours of the incident at hand...

...During major disruptions at other times in the city's recent history, looting had been commonplace...

...When his administration closed off public access to City Hall, citing terrorism concerns, conventional wisdom in New York held this to be a reflection of the mayor's paranoid grandiosity...

...Unless you lived below Houston Street, your living arrangements weren't affected...

...His crisis management is of a piece with his overall method of governance...

...And even the mayor's enemies stand mute before the evidence of his astounding conduct on Tuesday, September 11...

...This time there was none...

...God knows it could have been otherwise...

...And, mindful of the calamity of a subway terror attack, there were several cops in every station and at every exit everywhere in the city...

...We take it for granted—so much so that in the past few years, Giuliani's crisis-management style has often been the subject of grumbling and partisan attack...

...New Yorkers have grown so used to Giuliani's omnipresence during a crisis that we were probably far less impressed by his performance last week than the rest of the world was...

...The primary was postponed, and for the first time it became perfectly clear to New Yorkers that come January, Rudolph Giuliani really will no longer be the mayor...