There are some things that just shouldn’t be done.

Milli Vanilli reunion tours. Guantanamo commemorative snap bracelets. “Concentration Camp” Lego sets.

And, if you’re Giuliani, having a “$9.11 for Rudy” fundraiser where you charge a minimum campaign donation of $9.11. The AP brings us the story that makes even the most avid fan of merchandising and materialism come to the verge of gagging:

The International Association of Fire Fighters accused Republican Rudy Giuliani of exploiting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because a supporter is holding a $9.11-per-person fundraiser for the presidential candidate.

The union — already a vocal critic of Giuliani’s — said Tuesday that the fundraiser’s “$9.11 for Rudy” theme is an abuse of the image and symbols of the 2001 attacks.

“It is nothing short of disrespectful to the legacy of the thousands of civilians and 343 brave firefighters who died at ground zero,” IAFF president Harold Schaitberger said.

The event was scheduled to take place tomorrow at the home of a Giuliani supporter in California, but the Giuliani campaign is distancing itself from the event. Giuliani campaign officials say that they had nothing to do with the event, but the event’s host said that all “$9.11” event planning was checked out with the Giuliani campaign HQ.

Using the September 11th tragedy like this is horrible. Covering up such use of September 11th for commercial gain is likewise deplorable. Who brands themselves exclusively with a day of national tragedy? Is this really his only selling point?

So much for “America’s Mayor”.

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About the author

Y-Love

A modern charedi Jew-by-choice since 2000, and igniting headphones with Torah hiphop since 2001.

Originally from Maryland and now holding it down in the shtetlach of New York, won the Jewish Music Awards for "Best Hiphop" in 2006. Vocally anti-prejudice and pro-unity.

Love me, hate me, or debate me, know you can't ignore me, though.

11 Comments

  • More importantly, is a Milli Vanilli tour on the table? Who will take Rob’s place after his tragic suicide? A reunion would be awesome-girl, you know it’s true.

    And yeah, this 9/11 event is pretty distasteful.

  • So let me get this straight … some loon wants to throw a fundraiser using distasteful imagery. The loon insists this is endorsed by the Giuliani campaign. The Giuliani campaign denies this … and you believe the loon? Nice. What’s wrong? Scared that America’s Mayor will give Hillary a tough time?

  • Yeah. A pro choice divorced Catholic dude who is a Republican… Hillary is quaking in her boots. verily quaking!

  • Not that there’s anything wrong with being:

    Pro-choice (?!)
    Divorced
    Catholic
    A dude
    Republican

    I ask you this … how will you stand four years of Hillary’s voice?

    Now, back to the more important issue of a Milli Vanilli reunion.

  • Post 7, they have exactly equal interest in lying, so Post 3 stands unchallenged, at least that part of it.

  • This is only par for the course for Giuliani, so I’m going to believe the loon.

  • Nosferatu Giuliani is the single elected official in the United States that could dream of challenging Bush for arrogance, dishonesty, and all-around personal loathsomeness, and I just pray that he doesn’t completely implode before the Republican nomination, so the civilized parts of the country can fully savor the spectacle of seeing him humiliated and utterly destroyed in the general election. You have to love the stunt he pulled last week while prostrating himself before the National Rifle Association, the one where he took a “spontaneous” call from the adorable Judi in an effort to make her seem less like a grotesque, blood-sucking Leona Helmsley-clone. At first, he stuck to the idiotic claim that the call was real, then shut his hole once Romney released a video of the same thing happening at his last campaign stop. Priceless! I mean, is there any limit – any limit whatever – to Giuliani’s naked pandering and transparent lies? Personally, I have a particular fondness for the sudden dramatic increase of photos of him baring his teeth in public, in a simulacrum of what would – among most mammals – generally be regarded as a smile.

    The truth of the matter is that there’s virtually no chance – and never really was a chance – that the Republican base would have considered a candidate other than Nosferatu. The notion that Giuliani would somehow become anathema to the base because of his positions on abortion, gun control, gay rights, and the like – much less such trivialities as serial adultery or treating his children like shit – reflects a profound naiveté and a fundamental misunderstanding of the political landscape. Though I often find Bob Herbert’s observations in The Times to be somewhat pedestrian and unimaginative, he wrote a superb column last Tuesday in which he provided a compelling analysis of the seething, inveterate nigger-hatred at the heart of Republicanism, and the increasingly intricate euphemisms the Party embraces in order to communicate to the base its sympathy for and approval of those feelings.

    As Herbert accurately notes, the Republican Party’s increasingly deformed racist identity largely dates from the time when Giuliani’s newest hero, Ronald Reagan, spit on the graves of three murdered civil rights workers to kick off his triumphant 1980 march to the White House. Quite simply, there is no candidate in America that is more poised to carry on that cherished Republican tradition of racism than Nosferatu Giuliani. And when that record is combined with Giuliani’s thuggish bullying and sneering contempt for anyone else who refuses to treat him with bootlicking servility, then you realize you’ve created the virtually perfect candidate for today’s Republican Party. Quite simply, any sin is forgivable to the Republican base, as long as a candidate is utterly reliable in the intensity of his bigotry and authoritarianism.