A Tale of Two Pressers

It was the best of press conferences, it was the worst of press conferences, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.

Actually, it was just all bad. Yesterday New York’s titular leadership showed the world how utterly inept they are during dueling press conferences.

New York City’s Mayor Bill De Blasio started this race to the bottom in City Hall’s Blue Room, the well-worn space where these events have taken place for decades. Perhaps in an act of mercy to the memory of a real statesman, a neat row of American and City flags hid the portrait of Alexander Hamilton. It’s just as well—he wouldn’t want to see what was about to unfold. Staring blankly, well even more blankly than usual, the Mayor looked into the one camera and warbled on for 15 minutes about peace, love, and understanding (minus the melody of an Elvis Costello cover); maintaining law and order, not so much.

When it came time for questions, it suddenly hit me—there were no reporters at this press conference! I know from experience the Blue Room has plenty of space to accommodate reporters even in this time of social distancing, yet De Blasio took questions over the phone like a bad radio show host. When a reporter asked about witnessing looters going about their business with impunity and without interruption, the Mayor became unhinged. His face recoiled, lips pursed, and he flat out denied that you could possibly characterize the previous night’s ravaging in that way. This would be an odd perspective given the video of looters doing their best Black Friday rush into a boarded-up Macy’s, shopping, literally, with fire in their step.

Adding to this absurdist performance was De Blasio’s denunciation of using the National Guard. Claiming that these profession troops were untrained and unable to integrate into the police command, he saved his greatest venom for last—that this force was…armed. Of course he had just called on community leaders and local clergy to stand up and stop the rioters through the force of their words, a force to which a mob is notably non-compliant when wielding crowbars. Adding to the general menace was the Mayor’s concern that the protests and riots might add to a new out brake of Coronovirus. What was a joke meme on Facebook now overshadowed utter lawlessness on the streets.

Up the Hudson River, the curtain rose on a different kind of off-Broadway show. Opening in March, it featured the tiresome droning of Governor Cuomo and Swedish-colored PowerPoints. Normally Albany is a sleepy beat, concerned with arcane budget matters and other ways to tax the state’s residents out of existence. But the past few months have been a record-breaker with daily national coverage and the Governor acting as a foil to President Trump. The reviews were fawning and it was a socially-distant standing-room only press sellout, like any night at Hamilton. The fanboy press has been polite and raising their hands waiting for the great performer to call their names and answer their not-too-difficult questions.

Tuesday’s performance, however, could only be described as one of the greatest flops of all time.

The sharks didn’t just smell blood. The sharks had sniffed through the chum and were headed straight for kill. Some raised their hands, but all were yelling like the White House press corps when Marine One has its rotors going full tilt. One look at Cuomo’s face and you could tell he knew he was nothing but prey this day.

Blasting both De Blasio and the NYPD for failing to do anything resembling their jobs (a remark about the police for which he would later have to apologize), Cuomo started off feigning strength. But then the question of the day came up: why didn’t he send in the National Guard? What followed was a Cuomo-esque litany of legalese and philosophy. He had offered the National Guard to cities across the state. Well he could have sent in the National Guard, but that meant displacing the Mayor’s authority. He wasn’t ready yet to displace the Mayor’s authority. On it went, as did the looting.

To the press’s credit, they wouldn’t let go. One intrepid reporter threw out a national question—had there been a request from Washington to send New York’s National Guard to the capital to help out with the protests there? The Governor never actually answered that question, but came up with the worst possible answer—he wouldn’t send National Guard troops out of state because they were needed in New York. There was a moment of silence while the circular logic sank in, perhaps the quiet was also a nod to the political death the Governor had just inflicted upon himself. Even his usual ending “Goodbye, I have to go to work” was met not with the usual rustling of papers and shuffling of reporters’ feet out the door but a cacophony of more questions.

Many years ago former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (no stranger to protests or maintaining law and order) described a moment of political and media epiphany. Vacationing in Los Angeles over New Year’s he was watching local news coverage as the clock was about to strike midnight. Then it struck him—the LA stations were replaying New York’s ball drop. What happened in New York definitely didn’t stay in New York, and he used that knowledge as a global platform to promote the city during his mayoralty.

What the world has seen over the past 48 hours, in Times Square and around the entire city, is New York at its lowest, the rotten apple cover of Time magazine those many years ago. The disgrace of rioting and utter chaos points right back at feckless politicians who couldn’t manage their way out of a paper bag. Great expectations have devolved into the bleakest of houses.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.