Sometimes you wake up with a song in your head and can’t get rid of it. This time, it was Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” and there was no obvious reason for it to be there at the crack of dawn. Had no memory of hearing it lately, yet there was Judy Collins, ringing in my ears.
“Isn’t it rich? Are we a pair?”
Suddenly, the explanation came on like a light bulb. The last thing consumed the night before was the transcript of Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton announcing their settlement of the stop-and-frisk lawsuit.
Actually, it wasn’t so much an announcement as it was a pair of peacocks preening about their moral superiority. In a sequel to de Blasio’s ungracious inauguration, he and Bratton hinted, wink, wink, that Michael Bloomberg and Ray Kelly were bums who willy-nilly violated the constitutional rights of black and Hispanic men, mostly just for kicks.
“Isn’t it bliss? Don’t you approve?”
They certainly approved of themselves, with de Blasio trotting out all the superlatives he could muster. It was “a truly momentous day,” a “moment of profound progress” and a day to “turn the page.”
“Clap for her,” he ordered the crowd after he introduced his wife.
And there was Bratton, adding a patina of sociology and sensitivity to the rough edges of cop talk. Young police officers, he claimed to know, were as confused and angry as “the public” over the wide use of stop-and-frisk and “shared a commonality of concern.” But that’s ancient history now that he’s back in charge.
“Don’t you love farce? My fault I fear.”
Their duet of mutual admiration was achieved by giving inconvenient facts a holiday. There was no mention that a federal appeals court criticized the biased judge involved, Shira Scheindlin, and removed her from the case.
There was no possibility of going there, given how much de Blasio owes Scheindlin. Her August ruling helped make him the winner of the Democratic primary by seeming to validate his anti-police agenda, and he now repays her by outmaneuvering the courts to put her back in charge of the case she solicited.
Dropping the city’s appeal, he says, sends the case back to Scheindlin to preside over terms of the settlement. As for Bratton’s role, it’s hard to escape the suspicion he was hired in large part because he agreed to agree.
Taboo No. 2 was the Bloomberg-Kelly record on crime. The day suggested that progressives will judge the NYPD by new metrics: whether stops-and-frisks decline and whether civil-lib types are happy.
So far, everything is great and never mind that pesky 33 percent spurt in January murders. Nothing to see here, New York, move along.
Still, some of us insist on believing that bringing down crime should be the No. 1 job of police. We believe that those who achieved historic reductions over the last 20 years, thus saving thousands of lives and the very city itself, ought to be honored instead of slandered.
For people of like mind, then, here are facts to clip and save, a kind of stickler’s benchmark. Major crimes are down by 80 percent from the sky-high record of the Dinkins administration, where de Blasio worked. Also, there were 334 homicides in 2013, down from 1,177 in 1995, when Bratton was last in charge of the NYPD.
That’s the record the new redeemers inherit and, if they are worth their stripes, they will do even better. If not, blood will be on their hands.
“Isn’t it rich? Isn’t it queer,
“Losing my timing this late
In my career?
“And where are the clowns?
“There ought to be clowns.
“Well, maybe next year.”
Hill’s new title
Reader Jim Soviero wants to change Hillary Clinton’s résumé, writing, “Given her latest dodge regarding Benghazi, perhaps we should refer to her as former ‘Shirk-retary of State.’ ”
A comeback win
Best line of the week comes from Gov. Cuomo’s office. After a foulmouthed union big denounced Cuomo as a “moron” and the “biggest monkey we got,” an aide to the gov showed restraint and wit by responding simply: “Union leadership in New York isn’t what it used to be.”
That is a putdown to remember!
The time’s blurred headlines
This head-scratching headline appeared in The New York Times: “Obama and GOP Facing Opposition to Trade Pacts.” Who knew they were such good friends?
They’re not, and that gets to the point that there’s a more accurate, better way to describe what actually happened. The headline should have said, “Harry Reid Rejects Obama Free Trade Plan.”
That would capture the news that the Senate majority leader of the president’s own party refused to bring to a vote the trade deals Obama outlined in his State of the Union address, deals that the “obstructionist” GOP supports. Sounds like big news to me.
But it’s not fit to print in such clear fashion because, according to the Gray Lady’s religion, only Republicans have civil wars. So editors concoct headlines that obscure the news rather than reveal it and other editors bury the story where few will see it.
Mission accomplished.
Obama’s jobs bid hardly working
Another day, another meaningless patch to the jobs crisis. President Obama’s latest effort aims to get companies to voluntarily pledge they will not hold long-term unemployment against applicants.
“Just because you’ve been out of work for a while does not mean that you are not a hard worker,” he said as the White House reported that 300 companies agreed not to “discriminate” against those out of work a long time.
As strong-arming goes, this one is probably harmless — and pointless. After all, it’s only focused on who gets existing job openings; it doesn’t add a single position.
That makes it a perfect complement to Obama’s previous expressions of compassion for those who can’t find work. He fights to extend unemployment benefits, defend surging disability benefits and expand the numbers of Americans who get food stamps. Name a bailout or a handout and he’s for it.
At best, this is charity. At worst, it’s cruel.
Real compassion for the unemployed would mean devoting himself to creating an environment where the economy grows and new jobs are created. As someone noted, Obama’s patches are about dividing the existing pie rather than expanding it.
He saddles business with regulations, costs and political hurdles, then wonders why they don’t hire. He refuses to approve the Keystone Pipeline, raises taxes and imposes ObamaCare, all of which are job killers. He responds with ideas that only cushion the safety net.
No wonder a Fox News poll finds that 74 percent of Americans think the country is still in a recession — nearly five years after economists say it ended.
They don’t blame George W. Bush, either. They blame Obama. Smart people.