Mayor Giuliani showed amazing restraint yesterday when he was confronted by two protesters who claimed he knew ahead of time that the Twin Towers were going to collapse and asked him how he could sleep at night. Later in the day, he was dogged by Norman Siegel, a lawyer who represents some family members of September 11 victims who allege the remains of victims were mistreated during recovery efforts.

Mr. Giuliani is correctly recognized throughout the country as a hero of the September 11 attacks. To portray him as a villain on that day, or as a figure in some kind of conspiracy, is worse than grotesque, all the more so because the portrayals took place here in New York City, where the attack took place. If anyone should be having trouble sleeping at night, it should be those trying to make Mr. Giuliani into a villain for his leadership in those dark hours. The villains were only the terrorists, not the American government officials who did the best they could to react amid unprecedented chaos and loss of life.

It’s understandable for those who lost relatives on September 11 or who became ill from the attack to seek scapegoats, to want to blame someone for what happened to them. But the blame belongs only to the terrorists, the Islamic extremists of Al Qaeda and their ideological sympathizers, not on Mr. Giuliani. Any effort to obscure that or blur it does a disservice both to Mr. Giuliani and to the historical record, and the sad thing is that by managing to confront Mr. Giuliani the conspiracy theorists and blame-mongers probably managed to attract more of the publicity upon which they feed. Mr. Giuliani’s strength in the polls is evidence that the voters know better.