The Yuckraker

NEW YORK — On a campaign stop in his home city Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani noted the solemnity of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

And, funny you should ask, he said, I was the mayor in New York city six years ago.

“I led our nation’s finest city through its darkest hour,” he told a congregation at Ground Zero, “I want to lead our nation through its finest hours.”

The crowd cheered, but to be fair that was mostly Giuliani’s staff. The mourners reacted by saying, “Hey, I’m reflecting here.”

“People say I can’t be elected president because of my views on abortion and gay rights. That I perpetuate the feeling that New York is the only city that matters,” Giuliani told onlookers. “But you all know that isn’t true, right, friends? Right!!!!?”

“Again, shaddup, already,” said Joe Petroni, a construction worker from Queens. “Come back tomorrow. This isn’t your day anymore.”

The Giuliani campaign continues Wednesday with a swing through Akron.

He is expected to pander to the thousands of the people there who have lost jobs this year and talk about how Sept. 11 made him sad but Sept. 12 made him proud.

After months of hype and anticipation it’s finally here.

Monday afternoon, Gen. David Petraeus will debut to Congress his long-awaited report on how things are going in Iraq. As expected, the American public and the retailers that cater to them are in a last-minute race to get their “Petraeus Parties” in order.

“Our television sales are up about 23 percent from this month last year,” said Manny Macomber, a salesman at H.H. Gregg, 544 W. Main St., “You can say we’ve had quite a surge.”

Spokesmen for Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Amazon all said the DVD of the two-hour condensed version of the Petraeus testimony is second on their pre-order sales list, behind “High School Musical 2.”

Nationwide, 16 percent of workers are projected to use a sick day Monday, according to the outplacement firm of Fredrickson & Eagle. That’s comparable to first day of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

But perhaps the best example of America’s love of televised Iraq war news coverage came Sunday night at the local Kroger, 115 W. Main St.

The aisles were packed with folks wearing Petraeus t-shirts. Salsa, bags of Buffalo wings and cornhole games were all in short supply.

As one shopper put it, “This is like the Oscars, Super Bowl and Olympics all rolled into one.”

The crochety old campaigner had one more bout left in him.

In front of a House committee Wednesday, former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld denied that the Pentagon covered up the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman.

Tillman is the former Arizona Cardinal who gave up the NFL in favor of joining the Army after Sept. 11.

“There is no doubt in my mind, sir, that you knew that friendly fire caused the death of Mr. Tillman,” Committee Chair Henry Waxman, D-Calif, declared.

“So the questions are a) when did you know it wasn’t enemy fire and b) why did you continue to present this charade to the American public and, above all, Mr. Tillman’s friends and family?”

Fair questions, to be sure, and ones that Rumsfeld answered by digging deep into his perplexing canon of greatest hits.

“With respect, we never denied that Mr. Tillman died,” he said. “That’s never been an issue. I’m not quite sure what this hubbub’s about, if you can call this a hubbub at all.”