Back to the Mayor: A Postmortem

 The prior posting predicted, with no elevated degree of premonitory clairvoyance, a significant number of New York's Finest and other law enforcement personnel pivoted 180 degrees when Alleged Mayor de Blasio gave the eulogy for Detective Wenjian Liu at today's funeral.

I am of two minds on the subject.  On one hand, if substantially all of the NYPD rank-and-file had heeded Commissioner Bratton's precatory advice to not diss de Blasio during the funeral, then they would have placed a significant degree of bargaining power into the Commissioner's hands, and the Bratton might now have a little bit more of the upper hand in his dealings with City Hall.  By ignoring Bratton's entreaties, they have now placed Bratton into somewhat of a tight corner.  Though he does have a legal right to prohibit his troops from acting in such a disrespectful manner, his ability to make any such ukases stick is in serious doubt.  This is the point where the slope downward towards constabulary unruliness and anarchy starts to get slippery and steep.

On the other hand, the same standard can be applied to de Blasio and his team, including and especially Al Sharpton.  Sharpton, you will recall, ignored Blaz's entreaties to hold back on the disruptive protests.  Good chance that Sharpton may show at the tomorrow's rally called for in front of the courthouse by Eric Garner's daughter.  If so, and if Sharpton is up to his usual modus operandi, then Blaz will not occupy any moral high ground with respect to the NYPDers dorsal disrespect display.  Blaz and Sharpton were molded from the same piece of excrement, and are fused together.

My concern is for the safety of New York City.  While the NYPDers can certainly not be expected to pretend that they enjoy the lack of support they have gotten from Commissar Blaz, there is reason to fear that, in their zeal to right the situation, they -- and de Blasio -- may well make safe streets a secondary if not tertiary priority.