Giuliani Wisdom

"I don't know who was responsible for it ..."
Those are the words of Rudolph W. Giuliani, now one of the world's highest paid consultants on global affairs and security, author and lecturer on leadership, America's mayor and post-9/11 icon.
The erstwhile mayor, it seems, can't figure out who was responsible for the assessment of the Department of Homeland Security that New York needs $80 million less in federal money to safeguard against terrorism. After a brief silence on the matter, Rudy told The Daily News Monday that "whomever they entrusted this to made a very big mistake."
I haven't read Giuliani's book, "Leadership," but I'd venture to guess that in it he espouses the widely accepted notion that the guy at the top is ultimately responsible for the work of his underlings. The lesser-paid working stiffs at The Post and Daily News have no trouble figuring out where to direct their ire, nor does Giuliani's successor, Mayor Bloomberg, who spent an hour on the phone with Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to discuss the cuts. The newspapers are calling on readers to send angry postcards and faxes to Mr. Chertoff, who once worked for Giuliani at the Justice Department. Higher up the ladder, President Bush, who put Chertoff in charge of Homeland Security -- and for whom Giuliani professes to have thanked God on 9/11 -- may also fall in for some criticism by an honest observer.
Yes, of course, the former mayor is being diplomatic by not criticizing his old friend directly, and also trying not to shut doors in his own party that he will need open for his likely presidential campaign. But that's hardly what we should expect from the bedrock of courage that emerged after 9-11. What kind of leader of the free world would Giuliani make when he can't even lash out directly against a figure in his own party for a boneheaded, political decision that hurts his own former city.
Re-read your own book, Rudy, before you hit the 2008 campaign hustings. Real leadership means telling it like it is, straight talk, no matter how inconvenient it may be.