Swift Boat Fire Fighters?

New York firefighters to oppose Giuliani

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday November 19, 2007
The Guardian

A group of American firefighters opposed to Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front-runner in the 2008 presidential race, are planning to run damaging adverts expressing scepticism about his 9/11 leadership.

The deputy New York fire chief, Jim Riches, whose son, also a firefighter, was killed in the Twin Towers' collapse, said: "TV made him a hero, and we'll use TV to take him down."

Riches and other New York firefighters have been voicing opposition to Giuliani, mayor of the city on 9/11, since he launched his campaign for the Republican nomination earlier this year. But they are now seeking to set up an official organisation that will fund television adverts in a campaign similar to the one that undermined John Kerry in 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which challenged his Vietnam record.