Where's the irony?

I wonder if Michael Powell was again merely being "ironic," when he writes in today's Times,

Political leadership is an uncertain alchemy, an admixture of the symbolic and substantive and the visceral. In times of consuming trauma, psychologists and historians say, a leader must speak with a trusted voice and sketch honestly the painful steps to safety. A leader must weave a narrative of shared loss while acknowledging consuming anger.

All this Mr. Giuliani accomplished, mourning the dead, comforting the grieving and cheering the living even as the police and the National Guard moved in. His critics have lambasted the rescue failures at ground zero and argued that his inattention before 9/11 cost lives.

But his performance shone brighter for the implicit comparison with President George W. Bush, who initially appeared — fairly or not — frozen in his chair, listening to second graders read as a nation came under attack.

Mr. Giuliani declined to be interviewed for this article.

Why should he, when Powell writes so eloquently on his behalf.

Here's our intrepid reporter, back in June, in response to criticism on a previous ode to Giuliani's Ovidian shape changing.

Your mama needs to reinsert the irony squiggly in your DNA. But congratulations: It's really hard to read that piece [his article] and take every single word seriously, but you done it. Another irony-immune blogger. You go dude.

He can write, but he's a hack.