Blas’ Ego Addiction

Boy, did Mayor de Blasio’s need for ego boosts bite him in the butt this week. He was all set to legitimately take his share of credit for the city’s record-low 2016 crime statistics — but felt compelled to increase the buzz with a silly photo opportunity.

The mayor claimed he held Wednesday’s press conference on the NYPD’s success at the Brooklyn Museum to highlight a “wonderful” photo exhibit contrasting today’s New York with the crime-ridden past. He posed for the cameras, examining the show with Police Commissioner James O’Neill and urging “everyone to really look at it.”

But afterward reporters saw the exhibit being taken down — and learned the whole thing was a total fraud, staged by Team de Blasio with no connection to the museum.

So instead of focusing on the NYPD’s success, people are talking about de Blasio’s clumsy propaganda ploy. Brilliant.

We’ve seen a lot of this from the mayor: Take that overblown (and taxpayer-funded) video featuring Broadway stars literally singing about de Blasio’s accomplishments — while pointedly ignoring his missteps and those ongoing criminal investigations.

Before that, the e-mail dump from his outside “agents of the city” disclosed another embarrassment: endless messages from his staff demanding those lobbyists ghostwrite letters to the editor puffing the mayor, as well as glowing “quotes” to pad out the end of press releases. (And, trust us, no one outside City Hall bothers to read those quotes.)

It’s all painfully ham-handed, even when de Blasio doesn’t get caught as he was this week. These stunts do nothing for his image — except feed his air of buffonishness.

Again, we understand the mayor’s desperation, especially going into an election year. But here’s some advice: Doing a better job will help a lot more than all these ridiculous propaganda ploys.