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A liberal friend pained over the rampant failures of liberal government makes an observation: “Barack Obama and Bill de Blasio are both learning to shave on our whiskers.”
The image is priceless, the insight wise. Their lack of experience in how the world works, and their ignorance of such basic knowledge as meeting a payroll, are proving to be fatal flaws for our president and mayor.
It is no coincidence they share a message of transformational change. Both are guided by ideological faith and are excellent campaigners, but show no operational ability to turn words into deeds.
Neither man can negotiate effectively, opting either to completely cave in or simply refuse to bargain. Obama gives Iran everything it wants on the march to nuclear weapons and invites the murderous Muslim Brotherhood to the White House, but won’t meet with Republicans or the prime minister of Israel.
De Blasio gives city unions sweetheart contracts, but can’t be in the same room with police and other critics.
Both talk endlessly about income inequality, but hurt the poor with self-defeating schemes for government handouts.
Another telling example is Obama’s latest outrage — his effort to draw a moral equivalency between Christianity and Islamic State barbarism.
“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” he said at the National Prayer Breakfast. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
The statement reflects his abiding disapproval of Western history and his fetish that Americans are always this close to mass Islamophobia — two topics where he’s far, far outside the mainstream. Instead of building a bridge, he throws a stick of dynamite.
Having failed over six years to convince the nation that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, he drags up ancient Christian history to silence his critics. He’s moving the goal posts, which is another way of saying, “Shut up, I’m right.”
It’s foolish to the point of stupidity, and reveals him to be disconnected from how most people see events. Islamists’ brutal beheadings of hostages and the horrific burning of the Jordanian pilot are, for the vast majority, a sign of unique depravity coming directly from an interpretation of Islam.
Anwar al-Tarawneh, the wife of Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, mourns in Amman, Jordan.Photo: AP
A recent Pew poll showed that half the country now believes Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence, a new high. By denying that reality, Obama fights the public, and each new atrocity only increases the distance between him and the rest of America.
The gulf already is striking. The president made brief, emotionless remarks on the grisly murder of the Jordanian pilot during a detour at another event. That event was to tout the advantages of ObamaCare, a program that has never enjoyed majority support in the five years since he signed it into law.
The surreal moment suggests Obama has decided the public no longer matters. With two years left in his term and no elections in his future, he acts as if he’s got a blank check on power.
Mayor de Blasio, taking cues from his ideological role model in the White House, made a similar calculation the first day he took office. His landslide victory came from a small slice of the electorate, with a historically low turnout of only 25 percent, making the margin misleading.
In addition, polls at the time showed that the people who voted for him did so despite major reservations about his anti-police, quasi-socialism lurch to the left.
Exit polls showed voters giving outgoing Mayor Mike Bloomberg a strong approval rating of 53 percent, and Ray Kelly, the police commissioner de Blasio constantly vilified, got even higher marks.
Those voters also support charter schools and want to keep horse-drawn carriages, two other favorite de Blasio targets.
Leaving aside questions about why people who didn’t agree with de Blasio’s agenda voted for him anyway, the polls and the low turnout demonstrate that he has work to do if he is going to be a consensus mayor.
A broad base is essential for emergencies and major initiatives, but as de Blasio’s bitter war on cops and charters shows, he thinks he can get away with playing to his small base.
Perhaps he can but, as my liberal friend notes, that behavior reflects an absence of wisdom and a lack of respect for those who don’t agree with him. Instead of trying to win over skeptics and opponents, both Obama and de Blasio govern as if they only represent their supporters, guaranteeing that greatness will elude them.
No adult who ever ran a complex organization or business would behave that way. That the president and the mayor still do reflects willful ignorance.
It’s no wonder, then, that the nation and the city are bitterly divided and badly managed, with multiple crises sapping public confidence. To expect anything better is to be as amateurish as our leaders.
Corruption across the aisle
This is what passes for bipartisanship in the Empire State.
Malcolm SmithPhoto: Douglas Healey
The convictions of Democratic former state Sen. Malcolm Smith and former Queens GOP Vice Chairman Vincent Tabone on bribery charges end a weird conspiracy aimed at rigging the mayoral election. Smith, once a power in Albany, was convicted of bribing two GOP officials so he could run for mayor as a Republican.
A GOP city councilman, Dan Halloran, was convicted earlier, and the other GOP leader, Jay Savino of The Bronx, pleaded guilty to taking a $15,000 bribe.
The scheme reflected Albany’s “all you can steal” culture, with Smith offering state grants to a shady businessman to pave the way.
The convictions are another notch on the belt for Manhattan prosecutor Preet Bharara. Coming on the heels of the Sheldon Silver arrest, he is proving to be the only line of defense between crooks and taxpayers.
Hill and the gang
There have been “grumbles,” The New York Times says, that Hillary Clinton has been hiring too many men for her campaign. So she went out and hired some women.
Next up will be questions of race and ethnicity, followed by demands for lesbian, gay and transgender quotas. All of which raises a question: Is Clinton running for president, or staffing Noah’s Ark?
Here’s ‘news’ Al can abuse
One door closes, another one opens.
The demise of Amy Pascal at Sony ends Al Sharpton’s hopes of riding a gravy train. He was helping her “heal” after hackers revealed Pascal’s racially tinged e-mails, but her new gig probably doesn’t include a budget line for shakedowns.
Ah, but the Brian Williams fiasco looks tailor-made for Sharpton’s clutches. If NBC throws its anchor overboard for telling tall tales, who better to ride to the rescue than Al?
He already has a low-rated show at MSNBC, he’s a convicted liar, doesn’t pay his taxes and has President Obama’s ear.
He’s perfect for the Peacock!
