There has been, and will always be, a special relationship between me and the people of New York city. It's really quite extraordinary. I cherish thi… - Ed Koch

Right away, I knew I was onto something, so I kept at it. I started to use the phrase in my newsletters and press releases. When I campaigned for reelection, I used it in my speeches, and everywhere else it seemed appropriate. "How'm I doing?" became associated with me, as it still is to this day. Years later, after I became mayor, the writer Ken Auletta, among others, condemned me for my slogan. There were a lot of people who used to criticize me for using it as often as I did, but for some reason Auletta's derision has stayed with me. He wrote that instead of saying, "How am I doing?" I should be saying, "How are we doing?" I thought to myself, You dope. Do you think anyone could stand at a subway stop at seven in the morning saying, "How are we doing?" and expect an kind of response. That's the way a teacher talks to her children: "How are we doing today?" It's patronizing. Worse, it sounds foolish. Corporations pay millions of dollars for slogans and logos, and most times people don't remember them. And it didn't cost a nickel. I wasn't about to give up a good thing.

Incidentally, my "How'm I doing?" phrase grew out of my first term as a Congressman. I used to come home to New York every Friday when Congress was not in session, and hand out literature at the twenty-five major subway and bus stops in my district. Every Friday morning, I'd be at one of them. I wanted to stay in touch with my constituents and give them the opportunity to talk to me, so I did not miss a week. Typically, I would hand out a reprint of some statement I had made in Congress that week and include a little box telling people to write to express their opinion and help me to implement my suggestions. I asked them to send me copies of their letters, and that's how I communicated with them. Hundreds of my statements were copied in letters in the course of a week, as a direct result of my bus and subway stops; the originals were sent to the President, or his Cabinet members, among others. Of course, my constituents were not always happy to see me, particularly at seven o'clock in the morning when they were running to catch the subway. They had other things on their minds than communicating with their Congressman. Most of them were in such a hurry that they probably saw me as an impediment. Perhaps they thought I was crazy; after all, it wasn't an election year- what the hell did I think I was doing?
I was trying to get attention, but it wasn't easy. When I first started, I would say, "Good morning," and people would rush by me, into the subway. A few would say, "Good morning," but that was about it. I don't think they were being rude, just indifferent, distracted. Then one morning, just to vary the routine a little, I said, "I'm Ed Koch, your Congressman. How'm I doing?" And people responded. They actually stopped. Sometimes they told me I was doing lousy, but they always stopped. And they talked to me, and I listened.

You ask Israel to cease building settlements on the West Bank, which are intended not only to house Israelis, but to provide a defense bulwark when the Islamist armies of the surrounding states, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria – Assad or his opponents – and Iraq, again try militarily to crush Israel. Will Britain come to Israel's aid? I recall when in one of those wars, Britain declined to deliver to Israel tanks it had purchased from your country. Britain under Chamberlain participated in the Munich sellout of Czechoslovakia. What you and your European colleagues are doing now is repeating the sellout, this time of Israel. The Czech Republic, mindful of what happened to it, is the only European country to vote no to Palestinian statehood. When one of your predecessors told the world that he offered "peace in our time," he wrote himself into history as a disgrace. How will history on this issue recall you? Why would you expect Israel to cooperate in its intended lynching?