Smoke still rose from the ruins of the World Trade Center, and the smell of nearly 2,000 deaths lingered miles uptown. A reporter asked New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani whether he worried that the city’s Muslim neighborhoods would be attacked in revenge for that Islamist-inspired atrocity. Giuliani responded that he would make sure that didn’t happen, that he was sending more police to those areas to protect their residents.
Those were Giuliani’s better years, when he moved to calm his hurting city. They are a study in contrast with how Mayor Zohran Mamdani has allowed, even encouraged, foreign grievances to roil the five boroughs. During the mayoral campaign, Mamdani refused to condemn a call to globalize the intifada, that is, spread the Mideast “struggle” everywhere.
Nationally syndicated columnist and incurable observer of politics, people and New York life.