During his 12 years as mayor, Michael Bloomberg provoked in me admiration and anger, passionate support and dismissive ridicule. But never once did I feel sorry for him.
Until yesterday. No man or woman who has done for New York what he has done should have to sit still while an avalanche of smears, lies and distortions rains down on him. He deserved better than the disgraceful drubbing he took at his successor’s inauguration.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and his entourage of “progressives” were as cold as the weather. Shame on them.
Are their hearts made of stone? Have they no manners?
Not until Bill Clinton spoke, more than an hour into the program, was Bloomberg’s success even acknowledged. Clinton thanked him and said what no one else had the decency to: “He leaves the city stronger and healthier than he found it.”
Bloomberg did so much more than that, yet had he been a scoundrel, he wouldn’t have been treated with less respect. The city itself was portrayed as a virtual apartheid prison, with only the rich granted full rights.
The lack of grace and wisdom among the new officials is a bad omen. They talk of uniting the city when, in truth, their course can only further divide it. And, very likely, take it backwards after 20 years of true progress.
Neither de Blasio nor his mini-me sidekicks, Public Advocate Letitia James and Comptroller Scott Stringer, exhibited a modicum of the sense necessary to lead a complex, world-class city.
They are the new Red Brigade, and you are either with them or you are their enemy. They declared war not on problems, but on people.
Their speeches were so full of tub-thumping nonsense that it would be hard to declare any one moment the lowlight, but this one from Stringer will do: He promised a future “that puts shared prosperity above individual success.”
Whatever, comrade.
James, a graduate of Howard University Law School, talked about “million-dollar condos” with such a sneer that she might be suffering apartment envy. She brought along a human prop, the girl named Dasani featured in a New York Times series on homeless children.
James saluted Dasani’s parents without mentioning that they have drug and alcohol problems and children they can’t support, but that would take her into the taboo realm of personal responsibility.
Repeated references to income inequality and social injustice were served with unintended irony, with even Clinton saying he endorsed the “core” de Blasio philosophy.
Ho, ho. This is the same Clinton who gets upwards of $500,000 for a 45-minute speech. Wife Hillary, who listened without blushing, also pulls down obscene sums for mouthing platitudes to fat cats. They are millionaires many times over, thanks to the nation they are fond of trashing.
Then there’s de Blasio himself, who owns real estate worth more than $2 million. His wife worked for big bad Citibank and his children, born in what he calls the “divisive” years of Rudy Giuliani’s administration, went to good schools and his daughter got a scholarship to a California college.
If New York is so bad, how is it that Stringer, James, the Clintons and the de Blasios are all doing so well?
At least the college student chosen to speak expressed a sense of gratitude. She came from the Dominican Republic at 15 because her mother wanted her to have a better life.
“New York City opened its doors to us,” she said.
She is a student a Medgar Evers College, part of the CUNY system. She didn’t say this, but her education is heavily subsidized by taxpayers — tuition tops out at about $6,000 — and most CUNY students get state and federal aid. That sounds pretty generous, especially for an immigrant.
The final irony is that de Blasio talked several times about the importance of public safety, after basing his campaign on attacking the Police Department. Not once did he acknowledge Ray Kelly, the finest commissioner in history.
No, the new mayor came not to praise, but to bury. He brushed off Bloomberg with a pinched compliment about his policies on environmental protection and public health, without mentioning the historic drops in crime or increases in jobs. Too inconvenient and off message for what he called his own “mission” of tackling — you guessed it — income inequality.
Like his political hero, Barack Obama, de Blasio described a tax hike as merely “asking” high earners to pay more. Asking? Can they say no?
By the end, I no longer felt sorry for Bloomberg. I envied him. He was getting out of town.