A History Lesson with John Tierney

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September 6, 2005 | 6:22 a.m.

The Transom is so relieved to finally hear the truth from those liberal fatcats on 43rd Street:

In New Orleans, the mayor seemed to assume all that was beyond his control, just like the mayors in the 1960's who let the riots occur. They said their cities couldn't survive without help from Washington, which proceeded to shower inner cities with money and programs that did more damage than the riots. Cities didn't recover until some mayors, especially Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, tried self-reliance.

It's so nice to finally hear someone say it! Damn all those mayors and their pro-riot agendas! And affirmative action and that evil, baby-loving Head Start program: actually more damaging than urban riots. "He's just a very interesting thinker," NYT editorial page editor Gail Collins once said of Mr. Tierney. "Just"? Surely that's faint praise for a man who manages to hold down a job on the op-ed page while being too fucking stupid to dress himself in the morning without assistance. UPDATE: Hey, didn't Mr. Giuliani actually, like, cause a riot among cops in New York City? Huh. —Choire Sicha