Once again, the unions don't get what they want and start blaming everyone for their failures. How sad. Everyone is to blame but themselves. It's the same old bunch of union cry babies.

i concur, the firefighter union, had a testy relationship with rudy giuliani during his course as a mayor as giuliani sought to slash spending and get the city into a surplus, the union is purely doing this on political grounds as it aligns itself with democrats like john kerry who are more favorable towards unions, the whole job of a union is to get as many pay raises, pensions, benefits as possible, the goal of a myaor is to keep that in check, much like mayor bloomberg is doing right now with the police ,fire depts, and the teachers union

As I recall, this country was built on so called "union cry babies". I'm proud to live in a country with strong unions.

Andy, you said EXACTLY what I was going to say...

The same Firefighter's Union who endorsed whom in 2004???? Let me see... Can we say John Kerry?
Puleeeze! The firefighter's Union is a joke and their leader an even bigger joke! The firefighter's who fight fires and save lives daily are the heroes. The Unions are nothing but greedy guses. That video won't mean a thing. Rudy already has firefighters in other cities and states endorsing him. Too bad the firefighter's union has to be so scared of Rudy that they have to try to derail his campaign. COWARDS! I bet you dollars to donuts they will endorse Hillary when its all over! nuff said!

I'm with you guys about unions being political pawns, don't get me wrong, they did amazing things for the american worker in the past, but I feel that their usefulness is pretty limited in today's gloabal economy. But you have to admit that Guiliani screwed the pooch on the run up to 9/11 in terms of preparing NYC for disasters.

He is a pretty corrupt and ineffective leader, he's be a disastrous president.

These comments are hate filled and utterly wrong. I am an independent who voted for Bush the first time and I can tell you right now that the comments you are making now will only further discourage me from considering a republican again. Becuase the fire fighters and the union that represents them disagree with Guilliani you dare to call them cowards. These are the people you held up as hero's in Bushes 2004 re-election campaign, now they disagree with you and they are cowards. Maybe you should put more stock in the facts, Rudy lacked any real leadership during the short time he was mayor after 9/11 and even wanted to postpone the election of Bloomberg. He lacked any real leadership prior to 9/11 and only mentioned the first terrorist attack one time while he was mayor, when he was PRAISING Clinton's leadership after it. He did not take into account the considerations of the first reponders and when 9/11 happened things were worse becuase of his lack of leadership. That is cowardice!

Doggie: Did you seriously just call the firefighters cowards? Were you running into a collapsing building to save peopeles' lives on Sept 11? Was Guillani? Mind you, many many firefighters also died in 9/11. How can you call be patriotic while disrespecting those that died that day? DISGRACEFUL DOGGIE!

i agree, it is total political hackery, unions have testy relationships with people not willing to give into outlandish demands, when rudy giuliani came to office the city had a massive deficit, a huge welfare and social services system laden with corruption and inept bureaucracy, and a huge crime problem, he had the mahority democratic senate and city hall clamoring for massive tax hikes to supplant those services, in that enviroment not only did he resist the call for tax hikes he slashed taxes 23 times, reduced welfare 70 percent, reduced crime to such an extent it became the safest city in america, and was a tough negotiator with the various unions, refusing to give into their demands of huge pay raises which would have cost the taxpayers an inordinate amount of money, hence the animosity from the firefighter union, also, note that, as per one of their claims, had giulaini extended the rescue period of the remains which according to them was

"Giuliani's decision to abandon efforts to recover remains of dead firefighters as he sought a quick clean-up of Ground Zero."

there would be possibly tens of thousands more people sick right now from inhaling the toxic dust at ground zero because they wanted to extend the time looking for people, so it is a catch 22, he extends the search, more people sick today, he doesn't, there is the current outcry, you be the judge of what the right choice would have been

sorry about the gikem, typo, that was me golem with the post aboive, also nobody is denigrating the firefighters, i myself was a 9/11 volunteer and went to lower manhattan as a student when the buildings fell to help people, it was a chaotic scene and people did the best they could under those circumstances, 8/11 caught everybody of guard in terms of the scale of the situation, the cia,nsa,fbi and whatever other agency you can think of was caught off guard, the mayor of that city did the best he could under those circumstances

Unions are useless middlemen that cause to many problems. I'm a democrat but have to say I'm on the side of Giuliani on this one.

Guiliani a Hero, and firefighters are cowards? How ass backwards are you people? You probably all claim to be Christian too. Why are people so blind? Crime was heading south in NYC before Rudy went into office and his accomplishments are largely manipulated and blown out of proportion. How people can align themselves with him is a testament to how pathetic and lazy Americans are. Do some real research, look up the facts.

Let's be incredibly clear on WHO the cowards are...they are the union hacks that have been backing Democratic candidates for years....they are NOT the firefighters themselves.

There is a MASSIVE difference.

Union = political opportunists

Firefighters = heroes

What a sad day it is when you read someone calling firefighters cowards - my goodness - many of those firefighters that died and are sick today from saving the lives of others are/were union members. Guliani - what did he really do to be the hero of 911? Why even use that to try to get votes - using others misfortunes - to me it is in bad taste. It is neither a republican nor democrat issue it is a reality issue. jeb

Too many union leaders--as opposed to the rank and file members--have become political hacks and mere campaign workers of the DNC. Why do you think Hoffa and the Teamsters left the AFL-CIO? They wanted a union which focuses mostly on what unions should do: collective bargaining to protect workers.

People need to make a separate distinction between the IAFF and the firefighters they profess to serve. I spent a 30 year career as a firefighter in SoCal and I can tell you from first hand experience that the IAFF represents the "union" and not the individual firefighter. It's all about power and money folks. Nothing more, nothing less. Too often I saw the IAFF support political candidates and initiatives that the individual firefighter would go into the voting booth and vote against. The IAFF is as out of touch with the "rubber meets the road" firefighter as our elected politicians are with mainstreet America. The IAFF may lend their name, but they will not bring the whole of their membership to their pandering overlords.

Is there not middle ground that can be obtained for intellectual discussion of the issues rather than crude name calling?

Wow. Just wow.

We went from the people that had first contact with all the insanity that followed 911 being awesome and the heroes of our day..

to them being all manner of bad things because they're going to slam a guy who didn't find it particularly important to pick up the dead.

I have yet to see 1 person call a "Firefighter" a coward in this thread... yet people keep saying they are... Can you people read???? They are calling the union leaders cowards, not the firefighters!!! Either you people are too dumb to tell the difference, or have selective reading skills. Either way, I feel bad for you.

i guess i dont' understand how there can even be a discussion on this, let alone how ANYONE in this country can EVEN CONSIDER voting Republican.

who can possibly defend voting for busn in 2000 or 2004, let alone supporting giuliani or any of the other people running on the GOP ticket?