I mentioned New York's pre-Giuliani black Mayor David Dinkins in my recent Fulford File, and this seemed familiar when I read it recently:

"Seven years ago, New York City under Mayor David Dinkins stood on the edge of social and economic breakdown. Elected in 1989 as a symbol of racial healing, Dinkins conducted a largely symbolic mayoralty. Put in power by liberals whose exhausted policy program had been replaced by identity politics, he had no agenda and no idea how to govern."

[The Prince of New York,Rudolph Giuliani's legacy, By Fred Siegel,Weekly Standard, August 21, 2000]