US:A request by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for an official tour of Ground Zero while he is at the United Nations next week met a collective response that was classically New Yorker: Fuhgeddaboutit! The New York police department turned down Mr Ahmadinejad, citing security concerns and continuing construction at the scene of the September 11th attacks.
But the White House and the state department were less concerned with sparing the Iranian leader's feelings. "I can understand why they would not want somebody who is running a country who is a state sponsor of terror down there at the site," President George Bush told a White House press conference.
It seemed unlikely from the start that Mr Ahmadinejad, who has denied both the Holocaust and the involvement of terrorists in the destruction of the World Trade Center, would visit Ground Zero like any other dignitary. But on Wednesday New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said the police department was considering a request from the Iranian leader to lay a wreath at the site.
Media commentators were aghast - and the US's top contenders for the White House in 2008, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, who are both from New York, soon waded into the fray.
"Assisting Ahmadinejad in touring Ground Zero... is outrageous," former mayor of New York and Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani said