Vito Fossella and the IAFF

The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) donated $1,000 to Rep. Vito Fossella's campaign last quarter, and it seems contrary to all of their political efforts. First and foremost I have the utmost respect for the IAFF. They are a tremendous organization and recently did some great ground work for Sen. Dodd's presidential campaign. And that is why this contribution intrigues me. The IAFF has spent quite a bit of time exposing Rudy Giuliani and his real record regarding disastrous decisions before and after September 11th. While that was going on Rep. Vito Fossella was hard at work negating the IAFF and trying to get Rudy Giuliani elected.

It is not just that Vito endorsed Giuliani. Many elected officials passive endorsed presidential candidates. The bigger problem is the Vito campaigned hard for Rudy Giuliani.

"We helped him out immensely here," said Fossella. "We had people making phone calls and doing other things. You don't have to be physically located in the state to help him. Everything makes a difference. We made a pretty good showing in the Rudy Giuliani campaign."

Fossella took part in a conference call with Giuliani and present and former House members recently, and also has appeared on television to tout Giuliani's campaign.

and then there is this piece where Vito praises Giulaini's leadership post September 11th;



To the fire fighters who worked effortlessly to expose Rudy Giuliani's horrible decisions and poor leadership I would ask you to take a look at the Democratic candidates in this race and see if they do not better represent what you are fighting for and who you want in Washington DC.

update: Going through some previous posts I found this;

Fossella is the only New York City member of Congress to not sign on to Nadler's letter asking Congress for money to fund the health care needs of our first responders suffering from various ailments related to contamination of the area around Ground Zero.

and this;

So while Rep. Vito Fossella used his sound bites to say terror! as often as possible, it wasn't until Rep. Nadler (D) spoke second, that he brought up the point about President Bush refusing to cover the costs of medical tests and treatment for our own firemen. Given the chance to use his appearance to demand funding medical coverage for these first responders, Rep. Vito Fossella instead used his time to praise President Bush.