A Humbug in Hamburg

One nice thing about speaking to a foreign crowd: They’re unlikely to realize how weird your remarks will sound to the people back home. At least, that’s surely true of the lefties in Hamburg who cheered as Mayor de Blasio waxed bizarre.

Right now in New York, talking up the subways as a metaphor for social harmony would bring Bronx cheers. Public transit does indeed have “the rich and the poor, people of all faiths and all backgrounds, cramped in close together” — but they’re all also facing delays and service outages, thanks to leaders like de Blasio who ignored the system’s growing troubles until they became a crisis.

And, while it was nice of the mayor to urge “thanks for the police” whose protection makes protests possible, the crowd he was addressing included the extremists who had injured hundreds of Hamburg officers by throwing bottles and firebombs in their “protests” of the G-20 gathering of world leaders.

Not to mention the fact that de Blasio, by scooting off to Germany, had missed Saturday’s mass vigil at the 46th Precinct stationhouse for slain Police Officer Miosotis Familia, just as he’d missed Friday morning’s Police Academy graduation ceremony to prepare for his trip.

For his audiences, the mayor’s speeches were empty feelgood.

For that, de Blasio got a free trip to Europe and a chance visit his son, plus the opportunity to field softball questions from the foreign press and to preen as an international progressive leader.

All of it a lot more fun than dealing with a public that expects real-world results.