As of September 8, Forbes reports, more than 100,000 people have signed a petition asking organizers of New York City’s 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony to “carefully consider whether [New York City mayor Zohran] Mamdani’s participation would align with the intention of the ceremony and the expectations of the families most directly affected by the tragedy.”

Coming from family members of people who died in the 9/11 attacks, the petition deserves a respectful hearing, whether the claims about Mamdani’s sentiments, sympathies and past actions ring true or not. They’re the people who lost loved ones. The ceremony is, or should be, for them.

Unfortunately, some less deserving people compulsively run to the front of parades that aren’t about them. One such person is former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“It offends me that he’s coming,” Giuliani said in a weekend interview, following up with claims that Muslims in general want to “take us over” and that Mamdani is “a clear supporter of that.”

At least 32, and possibly more than 60, Muslims died in the 9/11 attacks (excluding the attackers, of course). I wonder what their loved ones think about the guest list at the Commemoration Ceremony?

As for Giuliani, he’s now spent 25 years milking 9/11 for every drop of personal and political benefit he can get out of it, including a run for president in 2008, during which then US Senator Joe Biden of Delaware characterized Giuliani’s every stump speech and question response as “a noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

Let’s take a quick look at Giuliani’s actual record concerning that sad day.

He was elected mayor shortly after a 1993 terror attack on the World Trade Center.

One major recommendation coming out of that attack was to equip the city’s first responders with compatible radio gear such that police officers, firefighters, and paramedics could communicate with each other during such events.  Seven years later, as his second term was ending, that hadn’t been done.

Another recommendation was the creation of a city “crisis management center” to coordinate the response to terror attacks and other major emergencies. He did follow through on that one … and chose the most prominent terror target in the city, the World Trade Center complex (building WTC 7), as the center’s site. On the day of the attacks, the center had to be evacuated due to fire instead of serving the city’s needs.

Afterward, he capered around the country calling himself “America’s mayor,” while rushing the site cleanup such that many victims’ remains went unrecovered, and declaring the site “safe” despite significant environmental hazards —  skimping on safety and causing more deaths among cleanup workers from illness than were caused by the attacks themselves.

By 2007, Giuliani was the one victims’ families didn’t want at their events, and for good reason.  He’d used them as backdrops for his constant antics instead of treating them with respect. And he never gives up trying to make that day all about Rudy Giuliani. What Rudy Giuliani thinks. Whether Rudy Giuliani’s “offended.” Quick, someone buy Rudy Giuliani an ice cream cone.

The actual loved ones of the actual victims are entitled to hold their days of remembrance without being used as props. And after 25 years of pointless and murderous wars, increasing domestic police statism, and fake “patriotic” caterwauling, all using 9/11 as the launchpad,  it’s long past time to start ignoring Giuliani and his ilk.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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