City of Dust

9. Such money grubbers as these

On September 11, 2001, a Republican triumvirate controlled the White House, the State House in Albany, and City Hall in New York City. But with the exception of Republican Vito Fossella of Staten Island (the city’s most conservative borough), New York City’s congressional delegation was chock full of Democrats. This political and ideological gap made it all but inevitable that there would be a deep chasm between the parties, even over something as tragic and nonpartisan as ground zero.

Besides Sen. Hillary Clinton, those who had most aggressively demanded that Washington pay attention to the dust were the unlikely pair of Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Both were outspoken critics of the Bush administration, ...