For Giuliani, a Pot of Gold at the End of Sept. 11 Tragedy

On the long list of politicians, talking heads, authors and other profiteers who turned the Sept. 11 massacre into gold, one man makes all the others look like pikers, and he’s on his way to Los Angeles as we speak.

Tragedy has been very, very good to Rudy Giuliani, who is using it to transform himself from annoying brute to American hero. If he keeps cashing in, who knows? Maybe the former New York mayor can turn enough of a profit to run for president one day.

Before Sept. 11, Giuliani was a cranky pol whose stock was so low, he shrank away from a U.S. Senate fight with Hillary Clinton, and his estranged wife wouldn’t let him in the house.

Today his crisis consulting firm rakes in millions of dollars a month, he’s got a $2.7-million book deal, and UCLA will be the latest stop tomorrow night on a national tour that nets Giuliani a reported $100,000 for a one-hour speech.

That’s $1,666 a minute, and projections for Giuliani’s speech-making haul in 2002 alone have run as high as $10 million. It must be a terrific speech, and I didn’t know if I could wait until tomorrow. I thought I’d pass a hat and rent Rudy for five or ten minutes tonight, but when I called his handlers I couldn’t get anywhere.

Don’t get me wrong. Giuliani handled that horrible day, and the weeks that followed, with grace under pressure. But what can he say in a one-hour speech that’s worth two years of salary for a teacher or a cop?

I thought I’d call L.A. Police Chief Bill Bratton for an explanation, since Bratton used to report to Giuliani in New York. But our new chief, barely six weeks on the job, was moonlighting in Israel, making a speech on traffic fatalities.

Do these New Yorkers ever turn off the meter? And by the way, how high a priority can traffic fatalities be right now in Israel?

Having said that, I’d still ask Bratton to be my date for Giuliani’s speech if he makes it back from his jaywalking lecture in time. No telling what might happen if you put these two guys in the same room.

Bratton, who also wrote a book about himself -- same as Giuliani -- didn’t have kind things to say about his former boss in print. When New York’s crime rate fell, they had a cat fight over who deserved more huzzahs for cracking heads.

“Rudy Giuliani, in his haste to sweep up every crumb of credit, had disregarded reason, personality and honor,” Bratton wrote.

It’s a shame there’s bad blood between “America’s Top Cop,” as Bratton’s book is partially titled, and the “Mayor of America,” as Giuliani called himself in one of his two books this year. If they put their heads together, they could come up with a mega-bestseller. “Fast Buck Nation”? “Who Moved My Microphone”? “Effective Habits of Highly Annoying People”?

It’ll cost $20 a head to hear Giuliani on Thursday night at Royce Hall, which seats 1,800.

Wait a minute.

That makes for a gate of $36,000, and if Giuliani gets $100,000, that leaves the state-funded university in a $64,000 hole at a time when Gov. Gray Davis is swinging an ax at the budget, with plenty of education casualties.

Alas, there’s nothing to worry about. UCLA told me the university is co-sponsoring Giuliani’s speech, but a private foundation is cutting the check, and UCLA told me Rudy’s fee is a private matter.

“Leadership in Difficult Times” is the title of Giuliani’s speech, and by a remarkable coincidence, “Leadership” is the name of the new book he’s hawking.

Some people find irony in this.

“New Yorkers are facing a tremendous fiscal deficit, a lot of it due to his eight years as mayor, and he’s got a book out about leadership?” cracks Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin.

“A lot of people got killed Sept. 11 because of poor communication between the fire and police departments,” Breslin went on. “They had been arguing about the problem for years, and it was Giuliani’s direct responsibility, and he did nothing about it. You don’t hear him mention that in his book.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson had an explanation.

“All history becomes subjective,” Emerson said. “In other words, there is properly no history, only biography.”

Best-selling biography, at that.

Look, it’s not Giuliani’s fault that he was mayor of New York when the city was attacked, and there’s nothing wrong with him taking bows for a job well done.

But if leadership is the issue, does he have anything useful to say about New York’s current financial flop, the nation’s flagging economy, the health-care crisis, or how we can expect to contain terrorists while simultaneously lowering taxes and waging a war on Iraq that could cost trillions?

If character is the issue, how do you in good conscience make a speech no one would listen to if not for the murder of nearly 3,000 people, and walk away with a nickel, let alone a pot of gold?

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com.