Well, I'm not sure, but of one thing I am certain: History judges one differently than contemporary observers, and so I think that as time passes, I hope that not me personally so much, but our administration will be seen for some of the things that we accomplished.
Well, I think I am a very, very lucky person. I'm very fortunate.
Children are amazing, and while I go to places like Princeton and Harvard and Yale, and of course I teach at Columbia, NYU, and that's nice and I love students, but the most fun of all are the real little ones, the young ones.
But I make the observation that no one of us would do things exactly alike.
I went to Israel when the missiles were falling there.
The people really are what make New York City great.
Some of us claim that New York City is the capital of the country, indeed the capital of the world. Now, that may be a bit much for those who don't come from New York, but clearly we are an important city for reasons of our cultural advantages.
I'm confident that, were I mayor, I would do some things differently than he has. But I think there's a world of difference between him and his immediate predecessor.
And, as a matter of fact, I am the chairman of the Amadou Diallo Foundation.
I love children, and most of my involvement now has to do with children or youth programs.
And I tell people I'm in charge of children, children I haven't even met yet.
You can't twist Al Sharpton's arm.
This is about these particular candidates in this particular year. That's what motivates me.
There is no point in me worrying about what Bloomberg or Badillo will do.
But the courts have dismissed the lawsuits against me and Lee Brown.
In 1975 I was among a group of blacks who formed the Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee.
We have not always agreed, but I have said repeatedly and publicly many times that Al Sharpton has never counseled violence, but he gets blamed for a whole lot of that.
Well, I was about six or seven, and my mother and father separated.
My mother came here to New York. She and my grandmother were domestics, cooking, cleaning for other people.
As a matter of fact, even when I finished law school, I had no notion of public service then.
