Tuesday, November 13, 2001

Quote of The Day

James Woolsey, Clinton's first CIA director, says he never met privately with
Clinton after their initial interview. When a small plane crashed on the
White House grounds in 1994, ''the joke inside the White House was, 'That
must be Woolsey, still trying to get an appointment,' '' Woolsey recalls.

--Susan Page in USA Today

If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere......New York, New York.

IT IS A NEW YORKER'S NATURE to be flip, hard-nosed, in-your-face. They take no guff and give no quarter. This attitude was nicely captured by Firefighter Mike Moran who hopped to the stage at Madison Square Garden last month and told Osama bin Laden he could "kiss my Irish ass." Yesterday morning Mike Moran's neighborhood in Queens blew up. It had, despite a river of conspiratorial E mail and speculation, nothing to do with Moran but in a way it did.

A New York attitude was also on display when, the night Moran issued his raunchy invitation to bin Laden, the hall rumbled with boos and cat calls as a former First Lady and now U.S. Senator appeared on stage. Some viewers were shocked at the coarse display of bad manners. Others were weak with gratitude and relief. Finally, a group had the fortitude and uncommon brashness to let their opinion be heard - big time. They had had it with Hillary Clinton. Before they only grumbled in bars among their buddies or snarled at the TV set in their homes in communities like Mike Moran's. Now it came roaring out in a full throated cry that must have felt nothing short of therapeutic. Finally they could voice their disgust and anger at a woman they felt had gamed the system. A woman who faked her love of their mystical Yankees. A woman who arrived in their beloved state never having lived, worked, raised children or contributed in any way to the well being of the place and smugly walked off with a seat in the United States Senate. The folks who live in Rockaway, Mike Moran's neighborhood, have raised four and five generations of kids there. Hillary had to buy a mansion out of town just to have a voting address. That night, in Madison Square Garden, they were getting some of their own back. They were taking no guff, giving no quarter and in her face. So sue them. Up yours. Take a hike. Whadda ya gonna do about it?

New Yorkers and the out-of-state angels who love them had been through two months of digging out their loved ones. Trying to match dismembered legs. Taking home the dust of their husbands, wives, children and friends in little wooden urns. And, now this. More bodies falling from the sky, littering the streets and trees and rooftops. This time in Mike Moran's neighborhood. Fire, terrible consuming fire swept the street in the early morning sun. More miles of hose being pulled. The bridges and tunnels closed. The city was on Omega Alert! Whatever that was - something higher, scarier than High Alert we supposed. Most people kept working. They called friends, those who could let the TV drone in the background. As the terrible day dragged on they looked up to see a blonde woman, scarf loosely knotted at her throat, giving a make shift press conference in the street. Those who had seen that street on television all day recoiled in recognition. It was Hillary Clinton and she was standing in the street in far Rockaway. Where did this woman get the chops?! She was in Mike Moran's neighborhood!!! What she was saying didn't matter. It was the usual Clintonesque chin music. So sorry....terrible tragedy... New Yorkers will overcome....blah blah blah.

They turned away in disgust. No one could remember seeing her at a cop's funeral, at a firefighter's funeral. Rudy Giuliani had been to more than fifty. She had been to Ground Zero once perhaps. Laughing actually, in a photo op with Senator Schumer. No one remembers seeing her there again. Now, there she was in the neighborhood, clogging traffic, accompanied by enough security to get the President's entourage from Kandahar to Kabul. How Mike Moran must have had to control himself. How we all did.

Whatever the cause of this latest horror may be, New Yorkers can take it. They will clean it up and soldier on and pray that they can keep certain elements at least, out of the neighborhood. Enough already.

Lucianne Goldberg