The Daily Telegraph reported this week that President Bush has refused to meet or shake hands with the leader of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, during St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. This is in keeping with the principles of the president’s war on terror, which stipulates that America will target terrorist groups of global reach.

Not so with City Council Speaker Gifford Miller. Mr. Adams is listed as the guest of honor on invitations to the City Council’s “Irish Heritage Celebration” Thursday, as reported by our Benj. Smith at Page 1. Mr. Adams has since declined the invitation, citing scheduling conflicts. But the invitation was extended nonetheless.

Despite years of trying to clean up its image, the Irish Republican Army has proven itself to be a terrorist group with an international agenda. An arm of the IRA has sent members to Colombia to train FARC, a terrorist militia funded by drug money. FARC has been waging a decades-long war of terror against the people of Colombia. Most recently, the group shot down a plane carrying American government employees, murdered a defense contractor, and took three Americans hostage. The Colombian government caught three IRA members helping these narco-terrorists build bombs.

What’s the City Council thinking? In addition to being invited to be the Council’s guest of honor, Mr. Adams received support from several council members protesting that he represents “peace.” “The significant thing about Gerry Adams is that he’s a man of peace,” said Christine Quinn. Charles Barron, friend to all sorts of rogues, likened the decades-long terror campaign of Mr. Adams’s IRA to a “liberation struggle.” It’s insulting language in the wake of September 11. And it is telling that the genuine “liberation struggle” going on in the world today, the movement to oust Saddam Hussein from Iraq, is the one the Council has flirted with opposing.