NEW Yorkers are the first to admit their city has its seedy, dirty and exasperating side. Complaining, after all, is their municipal pastime.
But they also have a lot of hometown pride and do not like it when outsiders lecture them on what they already know.
That is why the House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich - not just an outsider, but an illiberal know-it-all from some redneck place down south - got it from all sides when, in typical Newt style, he summed up New York as a city 'replete with waste', corrupt, and, as the New York Post categorised it, a Big Apple 'rotten to the core'.
The speaker's remarks were intended as an attack on the Democrats' reluctance to cut welfare spending.
But his out-of-control tongue caused him so much grief on the Hudson that he not only apologised to Mayor Rudy Giuliani and state Governor George Pataki (both Republicans), but appeared on the top-rating David Letterman show to read out a list of 10 reasons why he loved New York.
Mr Gingrich's rare public apology was a wise political move, but as it happens, he was only telling it like it is.
Both Mr Giuliani and Mr Pataki have been making inroads into the wasteful, spendthrift culture of the area's public services.
