Can’t New York-area pols get through even something as solemn as the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks without embarrassing the city, the state, the nation — and themselves?
Guess not.
Instead, they’re already nipping at each other’s ankles.
And the fights are over the most inane issues: which pols get to be in front of the cameras during the anniversary ceremony and who gets to say what and when.
Sheesh! Is nothing too petty?
Can’t these supposed grown-ups put anything above politics — and self-promotion?
In the past, Mayor Bloomberg’s staff has coordinated the anniversary event.
But this year, NJ Gov. Chris Christie reportedly was miffed that Jersey’s governor at the time of the attack, Don DiFrancesco, wasn’t invited to the event — though New York’s then-governor, George Pataki, was.
Also with no invite is Port Authority Chairman David Samson, who essentially represents the Garden State in PA governance.
Sources told The Post that Christie privately called the mayor “Napoleon,” “a dictator” and “a putz.”
Late yesterday, a mayoral aide said Bloomberg had now decided that DiFrancesco in fact can attend. “Our interest is not in fighting about this,” the aide said. The mayor, he stressed, doesn’t want to politicize the event.
Well it’s a start, we suppose.
Still, no PA official would get an invite.
True, there have been many Ground Zero fights over the years — generally pretty petty and political.
At one point, the Freedom Tower had to be redesigned — causing a year-long delay — because the city and state couldn’t agree on security plans.
Indeed, the fact that so little was achieved for so many years is itself sufficient cause for embarrassment. (Fortunately, that era seems to have passed — and much progress is being made now.)
But spats over who’ll appear at the ceremony and who gets to speak when?
That takes the cake.
It goes without saying that 9/11 was about as serious a moment in US history as there ever was — and that an event marking the worst attack on the nation’s soil and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people should be treated with the utmost solemnity.
Please, folks — show some decency.
Quit the squabbling.