City Comptroller John Liu just won’t go away — no matter how much better off the city would be if he did.
Instead, he’s still strutting about trying to convince folks he’s mayoral material — but only proving, in the process, how grossly unfit he is for any public office.
Take last week: Liu praised San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee for nixing a plan to have cops in that city stop and frisk suspects, as they do in New York. He told the Frisco mayor that the invaluable policing tactic is “nothing more than governmental racial profiling.”
And he stoked racial flames — and defamed New York — by claiming the city’s program “violates the rights of men, women and children in communities of color.”
No mention, of course, of the 819 illegal guns the practice removed from New York’s streets last year or that cops say the program has saved countless lives, particularly in minority communities.
Then, in the same week, Liu vowed again not to pay the $527,400 in fines he was assessed for illegal campaign postering in 2009. “We’re going to use every channel, every venue” to avoid payment, he vowed defiantly.
Yet Liu has never denied that his campaign violated the law; he’s merely, again, placing his own interests above the city’s. (And this from the guy who, as comptroller, is supposed to safeguard New York City tax dollars.)
Meanwhile, the feds have pressed ahead with their years-long inquiry into his campaign finances. And get this: Last month, Liu disclosed that he’d spent $165,000 on lawyers this year to defend himself. That money, of course, comes from his campaign chest — which he has turned, in effect, into one giant legal-defense fund.
No wonder he keeps claiming he’s running for mayor; it helps drum up donations to help pay his attorneys — even if donors have no idea.
Liu’s sleaze is becoming truly disquieting.
If he won’t quit altogether, can’t he just see fit at least to . . . shut his trap for a change?