Our Public Advocate's Public A**-Kissing and Other Tales of Disappoinment

Within hours of winning their elections, Bill De Blasio, our future Public Advocate, and John Liu, our Comptroller-elect, each demonstrated their own distinct, nearly opposite styles of ineptitude and tastelessness. They both failed their first major political test by treating their invitations to meet with Mike Bloomberg as a press event. It takes a special kind of public servant to be able to disappoint you before they even start working.

They aren't the only ones who blew their first chance to make good with the City of New York after a somewhat bitter election season. Mike Bloomberg's victory speech should have been his big moment to present us with a little humility, to explain that his slim margin of victory implied that he had work to do winning back the trust of many New Yorkers who turned their backs on him. It would have been his first chance to extend his election-season egalitarian rhetoric past November 3rd.

But that's not Mike's style; never has been. Instead, he invited his two new colleagues to a conspicuously blue-collar lunch, complete with media invitations, cameramen, coffee and toast. This way, he could have the Times print an article about how he's reaching across the aisle, showing a friendlier face to his opponents.

Bill De Blasio, our supposed government watchdog, took the kibble. He showed up to the meeting, appeared generally obsequious and doting in all the photographs, and didn't even get his own quote into the big Times story. He essentially absolved Bloomberg without even asking for an apology for his autocratic grab for a third-term. He used his office-to-be to excuse the mayor's abuses of the electorate. Some ombudsman, isn't he?

The next day, despite spending the summer trash-talking the Advocate's office, Bloomberg promised De Blasio's office-to-be an $850,000 boost from the city budget. If Bill plays like a good-boy, he gets his allowance, I guess.

John Liu took the angry adolescent route, telling Bloomberg that he has no time in his schedule for lunch, embarrassing and publicly snubbing the mayor. He even got in a couple tasty quotes, calling the mayor a "monarch," and declaring his independence from him.

Well, I don't think it's smart to publicly embarrass the most powerful man in New York State, a man with enough political control to make Robert Moses look bush-league. I wouldn't hold out much hope for Liu's ambitious affordable housing policy-plans as long as Bloomberg is on the revenge path for last week's snub.

Both of them screwed up big, burying their policy plans under their public image.

Call me naïve, but I still imagine there's an public servant somewhere in this city who would have taken this opportunity to show that policy comes before P.R.

I imagine there's a public servant who would say to the mayor: "I would love to meet with you to discuss policy, but I just don't want to use it as a P.R. event. I think that does a disservice to my voters, who expect me to be independent and put issues first."

I imagine there's a public servant who could see that in addition to being ethical, this kind of level-headedness would make him or her look better to voters, and even to his or her colleagues.

In the mean time, let's at least hold these newly-elected officials to the some kind of standard. Who knows? Maybe our advocate will still pick up our calls.

 

Follow Will Schwartz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Williemitts

Comments

[anfractuous]

This whole awkward business could have been avoided if they had only met in Kensington, where there is not a single decent place to eat.