For The Record

When it comes to Rudy Giuliani's role at this year's 9/11 memorial service, some family members of firefighters who were victims are as unyielding as, well, Rudy Giuliani.

A group of them issued a press release last week protesting the prospect "that one presidential candidate will be given unfair advantage by being allowed to speak" at the ceremony. It argued that Mr. Giuliani's errors in preparing for a possible terrorist attack and the lack of precautions he implemented afterwards for those searching for survivors and remains outweighed his eloquence in the hours after the World Trade Center's destruction.

The release stated, "His verbal role at the ceremony will appear to America and the world to be an implicit endorsement by the 9/11 families as well as the first responders who will be reading the names of the victims. This could not be further from the truth."

Other officials including Mayor Bloomberg contend that Mr. Giuliani is being given the right to speak because he was Mayor at the time of the attacks, noting that Mayors and Governors have always been permitted to address the gathering.

But Deputy Fire Chief Jim Riches, whose Firefighter son Jimmy was among those who died on 9/11, said the ex-Mayor was unworthy of the honor.

"He didn't lift a finger to help any of us," he said. "He lied about the quality of the air after 9/11, and he didn't get us respirators until November."

He said of Mr. Giuliani, "If he wants to go to pay his respects for his friends [who died], that's fine. I just think it should be in a non-speaking role."

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The International Association of Fire Fighters' endorsement of Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd was generally greeted along the lines of, "Yeah, but who are they really gonna wind up supporting?"

Mr. Dodd's low standing in recent polls - he ranks below Dennis Kucinich, the gold standard for a lively candidate with no hope of winning his party's nomination - has some observers wondering why, despite his past efforts in Congress on bills to benefit firefighters, the IAFF wouldn't endorse Hillary Clinton now rather than waiting until her bandwagon is teetering from labor support.

IAFF Secretary-Treasurer Vinnie Bollon, a former president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, acknowledged a few hours after the Aug. 29 endorsement, "We owed the people that have been with us from the beginning."

But it would be a mistake, he added, to view this as simply a debt paid. "We think he's got an excellent shot," Mr. Bollon said of Senator Dodd.

The IAFF emerged as a serious player in presidential politics in 2004 because of its endorsement the previous August of a then-floundering Sen. John Kerry.

"It was a big uphill fight when we went with Kerry," Mr. Bollon noted, alluding to the fact that the Massachusetts Senator, viewed as a prime contender early in 2003, had subsequently fallen far behind former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the polls. "He was lower than Sharpton at the time."

Mr. Dean's lead had less of a foundation than Ms. Clinton's this time, however; he lacked her organization and money, not to mention experience in a pressure-cooker campaign that attracts national interest.

Mr. Bollon insisted, however, that Senator Dodd could make some noise during the Democratic primaries early next year.

"He's a fighter," he said.

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This newspaper's editor, Richard Steier, will be the guest of State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes Sept. 5 on his Regional News Network TV show, "Working New York." The half-hour program will be broadcast at 8:30 p.m. on Ch. 91 for Time-Warner Cable subscribers in the city and on Ch. 19 for Cablevision viewers.

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A benefit concert for the nonprofit group 9/11 Environmental Action will be held Saturday, Sept. 15 at 8 p.m. at the Bowery Poetry Club on the Lower East Side.

Danny Ross, a pianist pop-rocker who is also a staffer for U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, will be backed by an eight-piece band and horn section.

For further information, call (516) 318-9273.