Thursday, September 25, 2003

By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani didn't rule out a run for president someday, but he also didn't rule out body surfing the crowd at a rock concert at Metropol next month.

	Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani greets students, including senior David Bourne, left, of Burlington, N.J., while visiting Robert Morris University in Moon yesterday. Giuliani later spoke at Heinz Hall. (Steve Mellon,. Post-Gazette) Click photo for larger image.

That was good news -- musically -- for Darin DiNapoli, 19, a sophomore communications major at Robert Morris University.

In what Giuliani rated as both the best and worst question of his meeting with students yesterday, DiNapoli, or "D-Napps" in his role as lead guitarist for the band Identity X, asked the former mayor to consider the stunt when the band plays Metropol next month. It involves jumping from atop the stack of speakers and then being passed hand over hand over the heads of the crowd.

"Even though I'm an opera fan and my knowledge of hard rock is somewhat limited, I'm always looking to expand my horizons and we would consider trying to do it," Giuliani said.

Asked about the presidency, Giuliani didn't say no. But he certainly didn't say yes to next year.

"I see myself campaigning for the country's top job for President Bush," Giuliani said.

Later, in a speech at Heinz Hall last night, Giuliani said he would like to run for public office again "probably after 2004."

Giuliani, whose popularity soared in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks after bottoming out amidst a series of controversies and budget crises, also had some advice for Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy.

Murphy, a Democrat, has suffered blistering criticism over his handling of the city's faltering budget, and Giuliani, a Republican, said Murphy's budget woes are not all his own fault.

"It's impossible to be the mayor of a major American city and not face, at some point in two or four years, financial problems," Giuliani said. "There were times I was so unpopular I couldn't go to a Yankees game without being booed."

Giuliani said the questions Murphy would face would be "did he cut the right things and then are you going to get lucky?"

By luck, Giuliani said he meant the economy.

Should it recover, he said, "then the mayor's going to look like a hero."

The former mayor spent more than an hour on the Robert Morris campus yesterday, meeting with students and then the press, prior to delivering a speech at Heinz Hall, part of the school's Pittsburgh Speakers Series.

His talk at Heinz Hall was primarily motivational -- focusing on ways to deal with crises and invoking such disparate figures as Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King and Winston Churchill.

Recounting the days surrounding the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani said the nation was vulnerable because it had not seen the rise of terrorism as a threat.

We were looking at the world the way we wanted to see it, not the way it really was," Giuliani said. "Sept. 11, 2001, gave us a chance to see the world as it really is."

He said planning and preparation will be key to the nation's success in the war on terror although no amount of planning will anticipate every avenue terrorists might take.

When asked if the nation will be attacked again, Giuliani said "they'll attack when we least expect it and when we become complacent and if we don't, maybe we can prevent it."

Questioned by an audience member about plans for rebuilding on the site of the World Trade Center, Giuliani said none of the current designs entices him.

"They emphasize the office space and not the memorial," he said. "The memorial should be the major theme of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center and the office space should be the afterthought."

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