After the 9/11 terrorist attack, Rudy Giuliani’s calm presence was an inspiration to the entire nation. Today, New York is a different kind of ground zero, and it has a very different kind of leadership — which is to say, the weak and woefully inadequate kind.

To say that Mayor Bill de Blasio has done a poor job under pressure is to understate the case. In the simpler times of 2014, New Yorkers had the luxury of chuckling at his weak leadership, as when he killed a defenseless groundhog at a public event. But that he has proven himself such a clown amid a grave crisis, even while vigorously casting blame at everyone else, makes for a grim sort of humor that the city’s self-quarantined residents can ill-afford at the moment.