Mayor De Blasio's Bloody Hands - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Mayor De Blasio’s Bloody Hands
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“Hatred and fanaticism, the flabby spirit of complacency that has permitted the preachers of fanatical hatred to appear respectable, and the self-righteousness that labels all who disagree with us as traitors or dolts, provided the way for the vile deed that snuffed out John Kennedy’s life.” 
— The editor of the Austin American writing in November 1963

“De Blasio, Sharpton and all those who encouraged this anti-cop, racist mentality all have blood on their hands. They have blood on their hands.”
— Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to Newsmax, December 2014

The climate of hate in Dallas was real, and it had real consequences,” wrote former New York Times columnist Frank Rich in response to a letter to the editor criticizing his 2011 New York Magazine essay titled “What Killed JFK.” So the obvious question: New York City’s current police commissioner Bill Bratton said this past Saturday night of the cold-blooded murder of NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos: “They were, quite simply, assassinated — targeted for their uniform, and for the responsibility they embraced.”

The assassin was 28-year old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who had written on his Instagram account: “I’m putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours, let’s take 2 of theirs.” According to Fox, Brinsley “used the hashtags Shootthepolice RIPErivGardner (sic) RIPMikeBrown.”

What Bratton did not say, but plenty of others are saying, is that in essence New York City — make that all of America in the Obama era — has become one nationwide “climate of hate” when it comes to the police. Not for nothing did New York police deliberately turn their backs to Mayor Bill de Blasio as he entered his press conference the night the two NYPD officers were murdered. Not for nothing did Patrick Lynch, the head of the police union, say the night the officers died that there was “blood on many hands.” To borrow from Frank Rich, this climate of hate “is real and it has consequences.”

As the story of the murder of these two policemen was spreading into the news on Saturday, there was by the sheerest of coincidences another story making the rounds that illustrates just how deep the hatred of the American Left for police really goes.

The second story was related to the Obama decision to end the American embargo with Cuba. Out of the mists re-surfaced an old story that involved one JoAnne Chesimard, a member of the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army who had embarked on a series of robberies and attacks on cops before finally killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973. Captured and sentenced to life in prison, Chesimard escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum. With the change in relations with Cuba, the New Jersey State Police are demanding her return so she can finish serving her sentence.

It is no coincidence, however, that these two different shootings of police officers — one in New York in 2014 and another in New Jersey in 1973, a full 41 years ago — differ not in the least in terms of what drives them. That would be the politics of the far left. Brinsley even used the term “pigs” in describing his intended targets — precisely the language of 1960s leftist radicals when they began targeting the police.

Way back there in 1967, at a leftist gathering in London that solemnly called itself the “Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation,” the subject of the rule of law in America was discussed. Among the participants were the prominent leftists of the day, including black activist Stokely Carmichael, Herbert Marcuse, and others. The discussions were later published, and revealed the heart of the Left’s view about law and justice. It was a “myth,” said one participant, “that through the rule of law justice ultimately triumphs.” The American “system justifies repressions, rationalizes oppressions, codifies frustrations… [and] when you are forced into this kind of choice, you hate…” And who is in charge of enforcing all this “repression” and “oppression”? Why, the police of course. Hating the police has long been a core part of the leftist political culture. 

The stark reality here is that the mayor of New York, the president, and the attorney general are all leftists. Time after time after time each of these men has each in his own way followed the ancient leftist line about the police. They are repressors at best, cold-blooded killers at worst. Understanding this brings the realization that for the Left one doesn’t have to be actually pulling the trigger to contribute personally to what can only be called now a seething national “climate of hate” toward police. This is nothing more or less than a deliberate national poisoning of the well of respect that police in America have had for centuries. And (hat tip Mark Levin) over at Time magazine former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir says, “Anti-Police Rhetoric Unlike Anything I’ve Seen in 45 Years.” Safir goes on to note: “We have seen nothing but police bashing from some of the highest offices in the land.” Well said.

Whether it’s inviting the infamous race agitator Al Sharpton to the White House dozens upon dozens of times (Obama) or giving speeches in which the message is the police are not to be trusted (de Blasio) or using the full weight of the federal government (Holder) to jump into the middle of the Ferguson shooting by meeting with protesters but not the police — taking sides — the American Left’s contempt for the police has emerged repeatedly. The message has been sent — and received. All three are seen as anti-police.

To Ismaaiyl Brinsley, saturated in this culture, Officers Liu and Ramos were not human beings — they were “pigs.” So too was New Jersey State Trooper Foerster a mere “pig” to his assassin, JoAnne Chesimard. The latter who, after escaping, fled to Castro’s Cuba. Which regime is now being recognized by President Obama.

It is no accident that the Daily Beast reports that “A lot of people were clapping and laughing” at the news of the police murders. Much less is it an accident that cameras captured participants in an Al Sharpton New York anti-police protest before the police assassinations chanting “What do we want? Dead Cops!”

To borrow and update from Frank Rich: what killed police officers Liu and Ramos?

For over fifty years the American Left has been insisting that what really killed John F. Kennedy was a “climate of hate” in Dallas. If they believe what they say, then there is one place and only one place to look for the reason these two police officers have now been murdered in cold blood.

That would be the American Left, its participants and cheerleaders who have whipped up this anti-police hysteria that is today’s “climate of hate.” Now there are two dead policemen to prove the point. No wonder the police have turned their back on him.

Jeffrey Lord
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Jeffrey Lord, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is a former aide to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. An author and former CNN commentator, he writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com. His new book, Swamp Wars: Donald Trump and The New American Populism vs. The Old Order, is now out from Bombardier Books.
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