Top US sniper shot dead

Chris Kyle, a former U.S. Navy SEAL sniper who was responsible for 160 kills, was shot and killed with another man at a gun range in Texas yesterday, the co-author of Kyle's book said.

A suspect, identified as Eddie Ray Routh, was arrested, reports said.

The second victim was not identified.

Kyle wrote a book, "American Sniper," about his military service from 1999 to 2009.

"It just comes as a shock and it's staggering to think that after all Chris has been through, that this is how he meets his end, because there are so many ways he could have been killed" in Iraq, said Scott McEwen, Kyle's co-author.

Kyle served four combat tours of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom and elsewhere, and won two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars for bravery, his book said.

Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click For Restrictions

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Isles’ start quite special

The Islanders' fast start can be attributed to a series of positive developments, from the inspiring play of budding superstar John Tavares to standout goaltending of veteran Evgeni Nabokov and the diversity and depth of the team's offensive production.

Or, the Isles' 4-2-1 start can be succinctly broken down this way: brilliant special teams.

The Islanders are first in the NHL on the power play and second on the penalty kill, each surprising considering they were near the bottom in both categories a year ago, don't have a go-to point man on the man advantage and have struggled in their own end at full strength.

Getty Images

POWER PLAYER: Brad Boyes scored the Isles' game-winner in overtime Thursday against the Devils.

"We're really concentrating on converging to the net and getting pucks to the net," coach Jack Capuano said of his team's potent power play. "Goalies are going to make the first save 90 percent of the time. We want to make sure we're there for second and third opportunities."

The Devils, meanwhile, enter today's rematch at the Coliseum in the throws of a skid after such a fast start. New Jersey is just 0-1-3 in its past four and is expected to go with backup Johan Hedberg after yesterday's 5-1 loss to the Penguins in Pittsburgh.

Tavares and Co. have been lights out lately in both the power play and penalty kill, and Thursday's dramatic, 5-4 overtime win was the best example.

At even strength, the Devils had a 4-2 advantage, but the Islanders were 3-of-4 when up a man and Brad Boyes got the game-winner in overtime, getting to a loose puck in front of the goal. They also killed off all five of their own penalties, handling the Devils' many potent weapons. New Jersey did have plenty of chances, but Nabokov was at his best on the penalty kill, making six saves on the Devils' final power play.

"Your goalie is your best penalty-killer," Capuano said.

That doesn't mean there isn't cause for concern. The Islanders have struggled in their own zone at even strength, which suggests issues along their back line.

Nabokov has a mediocre 3.14 goals-against-average , but a solid .906 save percentage. The group could be bolstered soon by the return of Lubomir Visnovsky, who was in Europe during the lockout and has yet to return.

Furthermore, expecting the Islanders to continue to make the opposition pay for their trangressions at such a high rate — a 37.5 percent clip — most likely is unrealistic.

The Islanders' power play, however, could be sustainable, considering the unit hasn't been scoring a ton of fluky goals. Its success has been the product of puck movement, smart and decisive decisions and winning battles along the boards and in front of the net that have created multiple opportunities. And while they may not have a burner to gain the zone, the Islanders have several skilled playmakers capable of doing so.

"It's understanding our game and how we need to play" Tavares said. "We're a tough team to play against."

zbraziller@nypost.com

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NYPD Daily Blotter

Queens

***

Detectives tracked down and arrested a creep who drove around Flushing and Corona trying to lure young girls into his SUV, police said.

Angel Recalde, 43, rented a late-model Cadillac Escalade and used it to approach young girls — leaving an easier trail for cops to follow, authorities said.

Recalde allegedly went up to a 14-year-old girl at about 8 p.m. Monday near Northern and Parsons boulevards in Flushing and tried to lure her toward the SUV, cops said.

When she turned and quickly walked off, the sicko allegedly trailed her in the car but eventually gave up and took off, authorities said.

Earlier that day, at 7 a.m., he approached a 13-year-old girl on Northern Boulevard near 102nd Street in Corona.

Detectives checked on recently rented Escalades, "which led them to the individual who was arrested," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly yesterday, adding that the suspect "made statements implicating himself."

Recalde was charged with luring a child to commit a crime, endangering the welfare of a child and harassment, records show.

Brooklyn

***

Police are looking for four teen girls suspected of mugging another teenager on a subway train in Bedford-Stuyvesant, authorities said.

One suspect (pictured above) was seen on surveillance video fleeing the station after the robbery.

The girls snatched the 18-year-old victim's cellphone and headphones on board an A train at Nostrand Avenue on Dec. 13 at 2:10 p.m., police said.

The victim tried to chase after the fleeing suspects, who stopped and knocked her to the ground, police said.

The thieves, believed to be in their mid- to late teens, fled from the station, police said.

The pictured suspect is about 5-foot-3 and 100 pounds.

***

A teen accidentally shot his sister's boyfriend in Bedford-Stuyvesant, law-enforcement sources said.

The 14-year-old boy was playing with the gun after his sister and her 15-year-old beau found it in a closet in their Jefferson Avenue apartment at about 3:10 p.m. Tuesday, sources said.

The weapon accidentally discharged, and the bullet struck the victim in the left foot, sources said.

The boy was listed in stable condition at Kings County Hospital, sources added.

The accidental shooter, whose name was withheld, was arrested at the scene and charged with reckless endangerment, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, records show.

Manhattan

***

A 63-year-old fare-beater trebled his troubles when he tried to pass himself off as both an NYPD cop and an MTA worker in Inwood, court papers state.

Monssor Saidi tried to get a free ride by jumping the turnstile at the 191st Street station on the No. 1 line at 3:20 p.m. Monday, but cops saw him and closed in, records show.

He flashed a fake NYPD detective shield and a fake ID with a New York state MTA logo taped to it, which obviously couldn't fool cops, papers state.

In addition to the phony IDs he flashed, cops also found a fake California driver's license in Saidi's possession, records show.

He faces several felony counts for impersonation and possession of forged documents, records show.

The Bronx

***

Three teenage boys were injured in a wild shooting and knife-fight last night, cops said.

One 16-year-old boy was slashed in the face and a 17-year-old was shot in the shoulder — while an unlucky 16-year-old was blasted in the crotch, cops said.

The three teens were taken to Lincoln Hospital and all are expected to live.

No arrests have been made in the Morris Heights melee, which broke out about 6:30 p.m.

Staten Island

***

Cops found dozens of small bags and envelopes of drugs in a suspect's possession in Rosebank, authorities said.

Mark Munoz, 25, was nabbed in a car at about 7:15 p.m. Tuesday at Hylan Boulevard and Tompkins Avenue, in possession of the contraband, court papers state.

Fifty-four glassine envelopes of heroin and 39 Ziploc bags of coke were found in the suspect's possession, authorities added.

***

A man went berserk and ransacked his girlfriend's Old Town apartment, then returned later and assaulted her, authorities said.

Angel Serate, 34, first stopped by the woman's apartment on North Burgher Avenue near Johnson Place at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday and ripped up her clothing, tore a phone cord and broke the front-door chain, court papers state.

The hothead returned at 9 p.m. and turned his rage directly on the victim, grabbing her and pushing her into a glass bowl on a table, court records show.

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A liberal sane enough to say ‘Nuts!’

John Podhoretz

The legacy of Ed Koch is all around us — and by "us" I don't mean just us New Yorkers, though we remain today the chief beneficiaries of the remarkable and remarkably dramatic mayoralty over which he presided from 1978 until 1990.

By "us," I mean Americans — because Koch played a role in snapping Democrats and liberals out of the political madness into which they were fast descending when he was elected mayor in 1977.

A onetime lion of the left, Koch didn't let ideology blind him to the very real consequences of the very bad ideas that had gripped his party and his movement. When he saw an idea that was (one of his favorite words) "nuts," he said it was "nuts," no matter its partisan derivation or ideological coloration. He was, he said, a "liberal with sanity," and he came along to show liberals a better way.

This was no small thing, for the liberalism of the '70s and '80s had become profoundly irresponsible. In a city that was drowning in crime, the liberal elite sympathized far more with the rights of criminals than with the victims of crime.

Koch made no excuses. "It stinks," he said of soaring crime, and horrified his former Village supporters with his support for the death penalty.

An ideological distaste for capitalism manifested itself in regulatory hostility — it was just too expensive for private businesses to do business in the city, and they were fleeing in droves when he took over.

Koch understood that he needed to do what he could to convince the city's business class that he viewed the private economy as the city's lifeblood, not as a bunch of vampires.

If you walked around with him, as I did once in the mid-1980s, he'd point up at a new skyscraper going up and say, "Isn't that beautiful?" It wasn't, of course, but in the decade before he took office, new construction in the city had ground to a near-halt, as New York seemed to be dying. He wanted buildings. He wanted growth. He knew it meant life for New York rather than death.

Then there was the madness of social disorder, best exemplified by the deranged ideas in liberal circles about homelessness. This disastrous phenomenon was viewed as the result of evil Ronald Reagan social policies, not as the result of the wholesale emptying-out of psychiatric institutions and jails.

Koch stood athwart famed liberal institutions that hotly defended the rights of people to live in the city's streets, even though they were a clear danger to themselves and others and the most visible mark of a society no longer able to maintain any kind of civil order.

The most famous homeless person in New York, a former nurse named Joyce Brown, had gone schizophrenic and renamed herself "Billie Boggs" in honor of a local TV host. The city sought to have her committed and to give her anti-psychotic medication. The New York Civil Liberties Union found judges who ruled the city had no right to do so.

Brown became such a cause célèbre that she was invited to speak at a Harvard University conference on the homeless. But not long after, she was back on a Second Avenue grate, screeching at people, throwing things at cars.

Long after his mayoralty ended, Koch could summon up the same disgust he felt with liberals at the time, how they'd simply used this desperately sick woman as a weapon to advance their agenda.

Thanks to the prominence granted him by his position as mayor of the nation's largest city, and to his undeniable star power, Koch's successes as a liberal with sanity provided a blueprint of sorts for Democrats seeking to lead their party out of the Reaganite wilderness. By which I mean: No Ed Koch, no Bill Clinton.

At his best, he conveyed his infectious delight with the best that this city and this country could be, and did what he could to get them both there. He was an agent of change for New York, and for the Democratic Party and for the United States.

How did he do?

Pretty great.

20.49 | 0 komentar | Read More

Personality as big as the Apple he served – & saved

Michael Goodwin

He boasted that he didn't get ulcers, he gave them. He declared himself the "mayatollah," insisted he was a liberal with sanity and called his opponents wackos.

Ed Koch was a Borscht-belt comic and a holy terror, often simultaneously. He was also one of the greatest mayors of modern New York.

He rescued the city from financial ruin — everybody knows that — but he did something else that, in the long run, was more important. By force of personality, he saved the city from the corrosive fear that a broke and battered Gotham would never come back and wasn't even worth the effort.

NY Post: David Rentas

As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan told me in a 1984 interview, "History will record Koch as having given back New York City its morale. And that is a massive achievement."

Indeed it was, and the dense, thriving, cosmopolitan New York that exists today wouldn't have been possible without Koch. His determined leadership laid the foundation for the success of his successors.

My own relationship with Koch spanned 30 years, not all of them smooth, but we ended as allies and friends. Our final conversation came Wednesday.

He was in the hospital, and I called his office to pass along wishes for a speedy recovery and to say I had seen the documentary film about him called, what else, "Koch."

When his office later connected us, he sounded weak, but focused. I told him the standing-room-only crowd at Tuesday's premiere loved the film, which pleased him. He then made the point that director Neil Barsky had given him veto power over any unwanted content.

"I didn't ask him to change a thing," Koch said, with clear pride. Not just about the final product, but with his own restraint, given that there were moments in the movie he couldn't have enjoyed.

Restraint, of course, is not a word usually associated with Koch. He loved to eat almost as much as he loved political conflict. He could curse like the World War II combat veteran he was and loved the limelight that came with saying whatever popped into his head.

Some of it was calculated and some a mistake. He later regretted closing a Harlem hospital that inflamed his relationship with many black New Yorkers.

But time offers proper perspective, and the final roll call is that his accomplishments stood the test of history. Had he failed, New York and the nation would be poorer for it. He was legitimately rewarded for becoming the symbol of the city's rebirth.

For 12 exhilarating and exhausting years, he was the mayor everywhere, all the time, every day. A generation came of age thinking he really was mayor for life.

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Punxsutawney Phil delivers annual forecast

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — An end to winter's bitter cold will come soon, according to Pennsylvania's famous groundhog.

Following a recent stretch of weather that's included both record warm temperatures and bitter cold, tornadoes in the South and Midwest, torrential rains in the mid-Atlantic and high winds in the Northeast, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his lair Saturday in front of thousands in west-central Pennsylvania but didn't see his shadow.

Legend has it that if the furry rodent sees his shadow on Feb. 2 on Gobbler's Knob, winter will last six more weeks. But if he doesn't see his shadow, spring will come early.

Getty Images

Groundhog handlers hold Punxsutawney Phil during the 127th Groundhog Day Celebration at Gobbler's Knob on February 2, 2013 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

The prediction is made during a ceremony overseen by a group called the Inner Circle. Members don top hats and tuxedos for the ceremony on Groundhog Day each year.

Bill Deeley, president of the Inner Circle, says that after "consulting" with Phil, he makes the call in deciphering what the world's Punxsutawney Phil has to say about the weather.

Phil is known as the "seer of seers" and "sage of sages." Organizers predicted about 20,000 people this weekend, a larger-than-normal crowd because Groundhog Day falls on a weekend this year.

"I just hope he's right and we get warmer weather soon," said Mike McKown, 45, an X-ray technician who drove up from Lynchburg, Va., with his mother.

Phil's got company in the forecasting department. There's Staten Island Chuck, in New York; General Beauregard Lee, in Atlanta; and Wiarton Willie, in Wiarton, Ontario, among others noted by the National Climactic Data Center "Groundhog Day" Web page.

"Punxsutawney can't keep something this big to itself," the Data Center said. "Other prognosticating rodents are popping up to claim a piece of the action."

Phil is the original — and the best, Punxsutawney partisans insist.

The 1993 movie "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray brought even more notoriety to the Pennsylvania party. The record attendance was about 30,000 the year after the movie's release, said Katie Donald, executive director of the Groundhog Club. About 13,000 attend if Feb. 2 falls on a weekday.

Phil's predictions, of course, are not always right on. Last year, for example, he told people to prepare for six more weeks of winter, a minority opinion among his groundhog brethren. The Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University later listed that January to June as the warmest seven-month period since systematic records began being kept in 1895.

"We'll just mark it up as a mistake last year. He'll be correct this year," McKown said hopefully.

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Weird but true

This guy may have fumbled the ball.

California officials are looking into how a Justice Department helicopter got used to hover over a high school football game in El Dorado Hills.

An agent allegedly dropped a football from the chopper to his football-player son on the field, KCRA-TV reported.

The stunt, which was caught on video, cost taxpayers up to $1,300.

***

Hope this wing-eating champ doesn't wing it in court.

A New Jersey man known as "El Wingador'' has been indicted on cocaine-distribution charges.

William Simmons, a five-time wing-eating champion, last triumphed in Philadelphia's Wing Bowl in 2005 when he chomped 162 chicken wings.

***

A Florida motorist who fell asleep at the wheel got a rude awakening.

Laura Cohen, 23, was driving north toward the I-95 ramp to Davie Boulevard in Broward.

A highway officer was in his parked car — its lights flashing — at the exit ramp as a warning to drivers that the road was closed due to construction.

You guessed it. She plowed into the back of his car, the Miami Herald reported cops as saying. Police said both had "very minor injuries.''

***

This Russian judge was caught napping.

He was fired after he sentenced a businessman to five years in prison for fraud — and the defendant's lawyer posted videos showing the jurist getting some Zzz's.

The defendant will get a new trial.

***

There's a big to-doo among diaper shoppers in southern Norway.

There's a shortage because a supermarket price war has inspired entrepreneurial shoppers from nearby countries to flock there and stock up — for resale back home.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

NYPD Daily Blotter

Queens

***

Detectives tracked down and arrested a creep who drove around Flushing and Corona trying to lure young girls into his SUV, police said.

Angel Recalde, 43, rented a late-model Cadillac Escalade and used it to approach young girls — leaving an easier trail for cops to follow, authorities said.

Recalde allegedly went up to a 14-year-old girl at about 8 p.m. Monday near Northern and Parsons boulevards in Flushing and tried to lure her toward the SUV, cops said.

When she turned and quickly walked off, the sicko allegedly trailed her in the car but eventually gave up and took off, authorities said.

Earlier that day, at 7 a.m., he approached a 13-year-old girl on Northern Boulevard near 102nd Street in Corona.

Detectives checked on recently rented Escalades, "which led them to the individual who was arrested," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly yesterday, adding that the suspect "made statements implicating himself."

Recalde was charged with luring a child to commit a crime, endangering the welfare of a child and harassment, records show.

Brooklyn

***

Police are looking for four teen girls suspected of mugging another teenager on a subway train in Bedford-Stuyvesant, authorities said.

One suspect (pictured above) was seen on surveillance video fleeing the station after the robbery.

The girls snatched the 18-year-old victim's cellphone and headphones on board an A train at Nostrand Avenue on Dec. 13 at 2:10 p.m., police said.

The victim tried to chase after the fleeing suspects, who stopped and knocked her to the ground, police said.

The thieves, believed to be in their mid- to late teens, fled from the station, police said.

The pictured suspect is about 5-foot-3 and 100 pounds.

***

A teen accidentally shot his sister's boyfriend in Bedford-Stuyvesant, law-enforcement sources said.

The 14-year-old boy was playing with the gun after his sister and her 15-year-old beau found it in a closet in their Jefferson Avenue apartment at about 3:10 p.m. Tuesday, sources said.

The weapon accidentally discharged, and the bullet struck the victim in the left foot, sources said.

The boy was listed in stable condition at Kings County Hospital, sources added.

The accidental shooter, whose name was withheld, was arrested at the scene and charged with reckless endangerment, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, records show.

Manhattan

***

A 63-year-old fare-beater trebled his troubles when he tried to pass himself off as both an NYPD cop and an MTA worker in Inwood, court papers state.

Monssor Saidi tried to get a free ride by jumping the turnstile at the 191st Street station on the No. 1 line at 3:20 p.m. Monday, but cops saw him and closed in, records show.

He flashed a fake NYPD detective shield and a fake ID with a New York state MTA logo taped to it, which obviously couldn't fool cops, papers state.

In addition to the phony IDs he flashed, cops also found a fake California driver's license in Saidi's possession, records show.

He faces several felony counts for impersonation and possession of forged documents, records show.

The Bronx

***

Three teenage boys were injured in a wild shooting and knife-fight last night, cops said.

One 16-year-old boy was slashed in the face and a 17-year-old was shot in the shoulder — while an unlucky 16-year-old was blasted in the crotch, cops said.

The three teens were taken to Lincoln Hospital and all are expected to live.

No arrests have been made in the Morris Heights melee, which broke out about 6:30 p.m.

Staten Island

***

Cops found dozens of small bags and envelopes of drugs in a suspect's possession in Rosebank, authorities said.

Mark Munoz, 25, was nabbed in a car at about 7:15 p.m. Tuesday at Hylan Boulevard and Tompkins Avenue, in possession of the contraband, court papers state.

Fifty-four glassine envelopes of heroin and 39 Ziploc bags of coke were found in the suspect's possession, authorities added.

***

A man went berserk and ransacked his girlfriend's Old Town apartment, then returned later and assaulted her, authorities said.

Angel Serate, 34, first stopped by the woman's apartment on North Burgher Avenue near Johnson Place at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday and ripped up her clothing, tore a phone cord and broke the front-door chain, court papers state.

The hothead returned at 9 p.m. and turned his rage directly on the victim, grabbing her and pushing her into a glass bowl on a table, court records show.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

A liberal sane enough to say ‘Nuts!’

John Podhoretz

The legacy of Ed Koch is all around us — and by "us" I don't mean just us New Yorkers, though we remain today the chief beneficiaries of the remarkable and remarkably dramatic mayoralty over which he presided from 1978 until 1990.

By "us," I mean Americans — because Koch played a role in snapping Democrats and liberals out of the political madness into which they were fast descending when he was elected mayor in 1977.

A onetime lion of the left, Koch didn't let ideology blind him to the very real consequences of the very bad ideas that had gripped his party and his movement. When he saw an idea that was (one of his favorite words) "nuts," he said it was "nuts," no matter its partisan derivation or ideological coloration. He was, he said, a "liberal with sanity," and he came along to show liberals a better way.

This was no small thing, for the liberalism of the '70s and '80s had become profoundly irresponsible. In a city that was drowning in crime, the liberal elite sympathized far more with the rights of criminals than with the victims of crime.

Koch made no excuses. "It stinks," he said of soaring crime, and horrified his former Village supporters with his support for the death penalty.

An ideological distaste for capitalism manifested itself in regulatory hostility — it was just too expensive for private businesses to do business in the city, and they were fleeing in droves when he took over.

Koch understood that he needed to do what he could to convince the city's business class that he viewed the private economy as the city's lifeblood, not as a bunch of vampires.

If you walked around with him, as I did once in the mid-1980s, he'd point up at a new skyscraper going up and say, "Isn't that beautiful?" It wasn't, of course, but in the decade before he took office, new construction in the city had ground to a near-halt, as New York seemed to be dying. He wanted buildings. He wanted growth. He knew it meant life for New York rather than death.

Then there was the madness of social disorder, best exemplified by the deranged ideas in liberal circles about homelessness. This disastrous phenomenon was viewed as the result of evil Ronald Reagan social policies, not as the result of the wholesale emptying-out of psychiatric institutions and jails.

Koch stood athwart famed liberal institutions that hotly defended the rights of people to live in the city's streets, even though they were a clear danger to themselves and others and the most visible mark of a society no longer able to maintain any kind of civil order.

The most famous homeless person in New York, a former nurse named Joyce Brown, had gone schizophrenic and renamed herself "Billie Boggs" in honor of a local TV host. The city sought to have her committed and to give her anti-psychotic medication. The New York Civil Liberties Union found judges who ruled the city had no right to do so.

Brown became such a cause célèbre that she was invited to speak at a Harvard University conference on the homeless. But not long after, she was back on a Second Avenue grate, screeching at people, throwing things at cars.

Long after his mayoralty ended, Koch could summon up the same disgust he felt with liberals at the time, how they'd simply used this desperately sick woman as a weapon to advance their agenda.

Thanks to the prominence granted him by his position as mayor of the nation's largest city, and to his undeniable star power, Koch's successes as a liberal with sanity provided a blueprint of sorts for Democrats seeking to lead their party out of the Reaganite wilderness. By which I mean: No Ed Koch, no Bill Clinton.

At his best, he conveyed his infectious delight with the best that this city and this country could be, and did what he could to get them both there. He was an agent of change for New York, and for the Democratic Party and for the United States.

How did he do?

Pretty great.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Personality as big as the Apple he served – & saved

Michael Goodwin

He boasted that he didn't get ulcers, he gave them. He declared himself the "mayatollah," insisted he was a liberal with sanity and called his opponents wackos.

Ed Koch was a Borscht-belt comic and a holy terror, often simultaneously. He was also one of the greatest mayors of modern New York.

He rescued the city from financial ruin — everybody knows that — but he did something else that, in the long run, was more important. By force of personality, he saved the city from the corrosive fear that a broke and battered Gotham would never come back and wasn't even worth the effort.

NY Post: David Rentas

As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan told me in a 1984 interview, "History will record Koch as having given back New York City its morale. And that is a massive achievement."

Indeed it was, and the dense, thriving, cosmopolitan New York that exists today wouldn't have been possible without Koch. His determined leadership laid the foundation for the success of his successors.

My own relationship with Koch spanned 30 years, not all of them smooth, but we ended as allies and friends. Our final conversation came Wednesday.

He was in the hospital, and I called his office to pass along wishes for a speedy recovery and to say I had seen the documentary film about him called, what else, "Koch."

When his office later connected us, he sounded weak, but focused. I told him the standing-room-only crowd at Tuesday's premiere loved the film, which pleased him. He then made the point that director Neil Barsky had given him veto power over any unwanted content.

"I didn't ask him to change a thing," Koch said, with clear pride. Not just about the final product, but with his own restraint, given that there were moments in the movie he couldn't have enjoyed.

Restraint, of course, is not a word usually associated with Koch. He loved to eat almost as much as he loved political conflict. He could curse like the World War II combat veteran he was and loved the limelight that came with saying whatever popped into his head.

Some of it was calculated and some a mistake. He later regretted closing a Harlem hospital that inflamed his relationship with many black New Yorkers.

But time offers proper perspective, and the final roll call is that his accomplishments stood the test of history. Had he failed, New York and the nation would be poorer for it. He was legitimately rewarded for becoming the symbol of the city's rebirth.

For 12 exhilarating and exhausting years, he was the mayor everywhere, all the time, every day. A generation came of age thinking he really was mayor for life.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More