Three Cheers for Rudy Giuliani

Not so fast.

So America learns that Rudy Giuliani, the New York mayor dubbed for his post-9/11 conduct as “America’s Mayor,” is in another fight at the ripe age of 81. This fight with illness and possible death itself. Caused, it is said, by lungs poisoned by breathing the seriously polluted air of New York, as the on-the-scene mayor inspected the destruction of the Twin Towers rubble from the fall of the Twin Towers on that horrific 9/11.

Yet as he fights for life, it is coming clear that it could be said of Mayor Giuliani what was once said of another famous New Yorker — former President Theodore Roosevelt — by President Woodrow Wilson’s Vice President Thomas Marshall. Said Marshall when learning of TR’s death in January of 1919, a death that came from a heart attack while Roosevelt was sound asleep in the middle of the night at his home in Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, New York: “Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight.”

And indeed.

Whatever the mayor’s fate on this go-round with what Newsmax reports are “serious lung issues,”  it is crystal clear that, like Teddy Roosevelt, Rudy Giuliani is putting up a fight. And it is worth noting that the reason America’s Mayor is in this fight in the first place is that he has, as Newsmax notes, “suffered serious lung issues as a result of his actions relating to Sept. 11.”

For those alive and sentient in the day? The reaction of Rudy Giuliani on Sep. 11, 2001, when it became apparent that two American airliners hijacked by Islamic radicals had rammed New York’s Twin Towers skyscrapers, destroying them in a cascade of plunging steel and concrete — not to mention dead bodies — would never be forgotten. Once understanding what had happened that day, the mayor raced to the scene of the disaster. Inevitably, breathing in the polluted air caused by the fire and smoke from the two collapsed buildings and the damaged buildings surrounding them.

Today, as with so many others from that time and place, notably the rescue squads of New York firefighters, emergency crews, police, and others, the now 81-year-old mayor’s lungs are poisoned by the results of breathing in the seriously polluted air that resulted from his walking to the collapsed towers that day and his repeated, recurring visits to the site.

Yet, now in Florida, he still fights on. Newsmax reports: “Giuliani Condition Improving, Remains in Critical Condition.”

Giuliani, 81, was rushed to a West Palm Beach hospital Saturday after suffering respiratory distress. Doctors found pneumonia in both lungs.

He was quickly put on a ventilator and entered into the ICU unit.

… He has suffered serious lung issues as a result of his actions relating to Sept. 11.

… As our source put it, “He’s not out of danger yet — but he’s improving and fighting, and that means everything right now.”

Indeed, it does.

But it is very safe to say that whatever the outcome of this latest fight with the results of 9/11, Mayor Rudy Giuliani — not for nothing now known forever as “America’s Mayor” — will be immortalized, a forever symbol of American resolve and willingness to stand up to America’s enemies, even when found in the very heart of New York City.

So three cheers for Rudy Giuliani — America’s Mayor. For whom succeeding generations of Americans will always be grateful.

Along with prayers for his recovery.

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