Mayor de Blasio has a gift for clarifying conflicts. His muddled thinking usually puts him on the wrong side, which helps the rest of us come to the right conclusion.
He’s also got a knack for picking losing fights with Rudy Giuliani. You’ll know de Blasio is getting smarter when he finds another sparring partner.
The patterns established with the mayor’s warped views on policing emerge again in the battle over “The Death of Klinghoffer.” There are legitimate views on both sides about whether the Met should stage the opera, but when de Blasio suggested that opponents, including Giuliani, were out of bounds with their protests, he handed total victory to the other side.
Said Mayor Muddle, “I really think we have to be very careful in a free society to respect that cultural institutions will portray works of art, put on operas, plays, that there will be art exhibits in museums. And in a free society, we respect that.”
He also blasted Giuliani, saying, “The former mayor had a history of challenging cultural institutions when he disagreed with their content. I don’t think that’s the American way. The American way is to respect freedom of speech — simple as that.”
Simple? That perfectly describes de Blasio’s view of the freedom of speech. He’s for it only when it suits his politics. Remember, he supported the Occupy Wall Street rabble when it set up camp in a downtown park.
The First Amendment is not a suicide compact or a vow of silence. It encourages dissent by protecting it. That means those who see an opera that justifies terrorism, with anti-Semitic overtones, have more than a right to speak out. They have a duty to warn the world, which is what the protesters are doing.
As for Guiliani’s “history of challenging cultural institutions,” de Blasio meant the former mayor’s attacks on the Brooklyn Museum in 1999, when it displayed a picture of the Virgin Mary smeared with elephant dung.
Naturally, de Blasio distorted that history. Stripped of theatrics, Giuliani’s point was that the museum shouldn’t expect taxpayers to fund blasphemy, and he suspended subsidies. That’s not anti-free speech. It’s pro-common sense.
The former mayor clearly understands the First Amendment’s treasured essence better than the current mayor. As Giuliani, an opera fan, put it Monday, “We recognize that people differ and that the First Amendment gives us the answer: the marketplace of ideas. It would be hypocritical and anti-American for us to interfere with that . . . but we also have a right, just as strong, and just as compelling, to point out the historical inaccuracy.”
And that gets to the heart of the Met’s decision to stage this particular opera. While predictable supporters, such as the New York Times editorial page, hail the decision as a case of artistic freedom, they give up the ruse by saluting the way murderous Palestinians are portrayed.
The editorial called the opera “moving and nuanced in imagining a tragedy that gives voice to all sides,” a short step from legitimizing the 1985 murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound America Jew who was shot and thrown overboard by Arabs who hijacked a cruise ship.
It is a stunning truth that, no matter how much innocent blood terrorists shed, they can count on sympathy from the radical American left. By putting that sympathy on stage, the Met took a political position, whether it meant to or not.
As a test, try reimagining the plot. Imagine an opera based on other real-life cases, such as where the killers are the masked fiends of Islamic State. Instead of Klinghoffer, the victim is an American journalist, like James Foley or Steven Sotloff.
Would the Met stage a sympathetic portrayal? Would the Times defend it as artistic freedom? Would de Blasio call protests un-American?
Let’s try another plot. Imagine an opera where Islam is on trial and Mohammed is not only pictured, but is depicted in unflattering terms.
Would the Met stage that? What would the Times and de Blasio say then?
I think we know. They’d be protesting a blasphemous assault on a religion of peace.
O hurts dems – honest
Holy headlines — President Obama is an honest man. He told the truth on Al Sharpton’s radio show, of all places.
Agreeing that some Democratic Senate candidates are avoiding him like the plague, Obama defended them — before sabotaging them with facts.
“These are all folks who vote with me; they have supported my agenda in Congress,” Obama said, citing minimum-wage hikes and other issues.
The comments blow up the fiction that Dem candidates in red and purple states would be independent of the president. But they do even more damage because of what Obama said next.
“These are folks who are strong allies and supporters of me, and I tell them, I said, ‘You know what, you do what you need to do to win. I will be responsible for making sure our voters turn out.’ ”
In plain English, he’s painting the Dems as hypocrites. While they publicly claim to be distant from him, he says they’re privately happy to benefit from money he raises and voters he rallies. He makes it sound like they have a secret two-track strategy to win the election.
Republicans quickly pounced, and promised ads using Obama’s words against his allies. If the ads are good, they should hand Senate control to the GOP.
In that case, the winners will owe the president a double thank-you. As always, he’s their biggest asset.
Guess it’s not a victimless slime
After all these years, Monica Lewinsky has found her calling. She’s a victim, and therefore worthy of respect instead of ridicule.
What took her so long? How did she miss the cultural shift where millions of Americans saw redemption, or at least profit, in throwing off the smothering cloak of silence and basking in the applause of a public declaration of victimhood?
Never mind that Lewinsky was old enough to know better when she had her sordid fling with a powerful man who was a skilled seducer and serial liar. But none of Lewinsky’s failings could stir the crowd like her claim to be “the first person to have their reputation completely destroyed via the Internet.”
For this she got a standing ovation. Go figure.
‘Serious’ doubts about Cuomo
Talking to nurses during an Ebola training session Tuesday, Gov. Cuomo said that “we’re taking this as seriously as we are taking anything.”
That reminds me of what he said about the Moreland Commission. Was he serious, I asked just after he announced its formation?
“As serious as a heart attack,” he promised.
Nurses, beware.
Take a breather
Block that metaphor.
After five days in which his city found no new Ebola cases, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said this:
“We are breathing a little bit easier, but we are still holding our breath.”