I noted a couple days ago that Rudy Giuliani appears to be one of the only politicians in US history ever to try to stay in office beyond his term, not because of any election dispute but simply because he was indispensable. This was just after 911 when Rudy decided that 911 had changed everything and that one of those things that changed was that he should leave office when his term expired.

Here are a few excerpts from a 9/26/01 press conference ...

QUESTION: Mr. Mayor, can you respond (OFF-MIKE) you would like to stay on?

GIULIANI: Well, I can tell is that what I'd like to do is to maintain the unity that exists in the city. And I've met -- I'm going to meet with the candidates and talk to them about something that we can agree on. Or I hope we can agree on a way in which to handle this tremendous crisis that we have.

And it's something that I would hope that the candidates would take very seriously. So I'm going to talk to them and try to come up with something that unifies the city because we have a very, very strong spirit of unity right now. And I think that it's my obligation to try to maintain it. So I can't tell what you that is until I tell them. And I've met with some of them, but not all of them yet.

QUESTION: Without being the candidate?

GIULIANI: I don't -- after I finish the conversations, I will tell you if we've succeeded in coming up with something that unifies. I hope we do.

...

No, we should come up with an agreement now. The city is in a -- is coming out of a crisis and is having to get used to living a different way. And one of the great benefits of this terrible, awful tragedy is that the city is more you unified than it ever has been before. And I want to do something that unifies the city, because I love this place. I mean, I've invested before this 7.75 years into trying to make the best city in the world.

And it then got devastated by this horrible attack. It's still best city in the world, but it's going to need a lot of help. It's going to need a lot of assistance. It's going to need a lot of unity. And it's going to need politicians who think outside the box, who think outside the old way in which we used to practice politics. So that all came to me last night, that I should start thinking that way also.

...

GIULIANI: Yes, I'm not going to -- that's -- here, once again, a terrible thing happened to us. And we can start think differently as a result of that. Which means we can everyone conduct our politics differently as a result of that. Or we can go back to the way we used to conduct our politics in the past.

And I think it's a lot better if we try to conduct our politics differently now. And things that people said before, you know, they have a right to rethink things now. They have a right to rethink things in light of a horrible, awful, unimaginable thing happening.

And frankly, I started thinking about that when I was with the two different groups of families, the fire families that went down to the World Trade Center today and the first group of civilian families that went down.

The pain and suffering that comes out of this is only beginning. There's more of it that's going to happen. And it is enormously important that we remain unified. And therefore, I'm going to see if we can all agree on an approach that allows us to handle this in the best interest of the city.

Mayors don't have a lot of real power. Not over life and limb and upholding or violating constitutions. But it gives you a sense of the guy's judgment, and his own sense of indispensability versus following rules the country has followed since its founding. With all that's happened over the last seven years, does anyone trust this guy with the constitution?

(ed.note: The full transcript is here.)