Because golf oozes inequality, I’m guessing it’s not Bill de Blasio’s game. Yet surely he understands a mulligan enough to know he needs one.
The start to his mayoralty has been as smooth as the rollout of ObamaCare. Blaming glitches doesn’t capture the seriousness of the stumbles.
Like the president he copies, the Mayor of Class Warfare came to his job unprepared to govern. He figured all he had to do was give speeches, tax the rich and everything would fall into place.
Then it snowed. Then the governor de Blasio assumed would roll over and play dead decided to stand up and fight back. Even the far-left New York Times editorial page got in the mayor’s face when he picked the City Council speaker.
Sweetheart, get me rewrite! Or at least a chance to start over.
We all need a mulligan from time to time, and the baby mayor deserves one now — on this condition. He needs to stop braying that he won the election in a landslide every time he doesn’t get his way. Pulling rank is a sign of weakness and makes him look naïve and arrogant.
His table-thumping is so obnoxious that an aide to Gov. Cuomo reminded the mayor that he won because more than 75 percent of registered voters stayed home. Touché!
The unusual public smackdown from a fellow Democrat reflected alarm over de Blasio’s amateur streak. His prickly behavior suggests he believes his election marked a paradigm shift that gives him a blank check.
That’s not how New York works. The power structure is complex and diffused, its layers revealing themselves on their own schedules. Even as mayor, he must prove himself worthy of the power of the office.
If he does, he’ll expand that power, as Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg did. If he doesn’t, he’ll join Abe Beame and David Dinkins as men shown the door before they wanted to leave.
Mistakes are par for any new mayor. But de Blasio’s all share one trait: He’s running late.
He was so late in deciding which Bloomberg commissioners to keep that some who left of their own accord had to remind City Hall their agencies were leaderless. He hasn’t filled hundreds of jobs, putting loyalists on the payroll with nothing to do except cash their paychecks.
He was late to events so often that reporters started guessing about when he’d show. Wife Chirlane McCray was an hour late to her first solo appearance. It took de Blasio five weeks to decide to live in Gracie Mansion — and he still hasn’t moved.
It’s not just style. His team was late to attack Tuesday’s snow, even though the coming storm was on the front page of that morning’s Post.
He was late to realize the Sanitation Department botched the cleanup, crowing Wednesday morning about “a helluva job.” Only in the afternoon did he admit the truth, and only after he saw it for himself.
It took him until Friday to concede the sloppy work wasn’t limited to Manhattan, saying, “I’ve heard more and more since about the situation in Staten Island and I’m going to pursue that as well.”
Perhaps then he’ll discover complaints in Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx, just to show he treats all five boroughs badly.
“I’m not a morning person,” de Blasio said when he overslept and arrived late to a November rally. If a new alarm clock were enough, New Yorkers could rest easy.
The fight with Cuomo is telling. De Blasio’s claim that fixing inequality required universal pre-kindergarten never made sense, but he obscured the illogic by promising to fund it with a tax on upper incomes. That fired up the populist juices — until Cuomo called his bluff by smartly separating the promises.
The governor said the state would pay for pre-K but reject the tax hike. When the mayor insisted the hike was still necessary, Cuomo’s office accused him of wanting a “tax for taxing sake.”
That should have been the last word, but de Blasio trotted out his “mandate” claim yet again. He is also lobbying legislators to pass the tax, an aggressive move that would force Cuomo to sign it or veto it.
My money is on Cuomo. My worry is that de Blasio will never wake up.
Obama signals leniency for traitor Edward Snowden
It was last June when President Obama downplayed the significance of Edward Snowden by saying, “I’m not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker.”
That was shortly after Snowden arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong, but Obama rejected the idea he should call the leaders of those countries and demand the fugitive’s return.
“This is not exceptional from a legal perspective,” the president insisted. “I’m not going to have one case suddenly being elevated to the point where I have to do wheeling and dealing and trading.”
If only he had. Now he’s wheeling and dealing from weakness and after enormous damage to America’s national security and reputation.
The news that Attorney General Eric Holder is ready to talk with Snowden’s lawyers is ominous. Holder’s comment in a TV interview that he would make a deal if Snowden accepts responsibility for leaking secrets signals desperation more than determination.
Obama himself opened the waffle door, saying earlier, “I do not have a yes/no answer on clemency.”
He should, and the answer should be no, hell no. Snowden is a traitor, charged under the Espionage Act even before the extent of his theft and cooperation with Russia and China is fully known.
Any deal that mitigates his punishment by calling him a whistleblower would be a disastrous invitation to copycats. That he embarrassed Obama among world leaders and the left wing of his party is no excuse for going soft.
The timing of the overture is probably related to Holder’s suit accusing the private security contractor that supposedly vetted Snowden of massive fraud. Whatever the merits of that case, there is no doubt that Snowden betrayed his country and helped its enemies.
It’s way past time for Obama to say so loudly, clearly and often.
New York Times refers to ‘Clinton diaspora’
The Times piece on Hillary’s 2016 run talked about reuniting her team, which it called the “Clinton diaspora.”
Does that make her 2008 loss a Holocaust?
Reader complains of Democrats’ free-lunch-to-food-stamp cycle
Reader Mike Misczuk can’t wait for the liberal bubble to burst, writing: “Here in Port Jervis (Orange County, NY), some high-school students will graduate from a free school lunch to food stamps. No competition with the ‘Joneses’ for them.
“We owe much to the Democrats, but most of all we owe them defeat.”
Syracuse co-workers’ $1 million lottery win
Hold the champagne for a group of Syracuse workers who won $1 million in the lottery. State officials are making sure none are “extreme conservatives” and thus ineligible to win anything in New York.