Ruining the Puerto Rican Parade

Unrepentant terrorist Oscar López Rivera will lead next month’s National Puerto Rican Day Parade down Fifth Avenue as a “National Freedom Hero.” And for that, you can fault City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito — and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who handed her and her allies control of the parade.

Using the parade (on its 60th anniversary, no less) to push a far-left agenda isn’t costfree. It’s clearly why Goya Foods ended its decades-long sponsorship, costing the parade $200,000 for music, floats and scholarships.

State Sen. Rubén Díaz Sr. (D-Bronx) blames Schneiderman for handing control of the parade committee to the radicals. As he notes, the AG used his investigation of misconduct at the charity to install new leadership in 2014 — for which Mark-Viverito, whose faction won control, publicly thanked him.

Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, the head of the parade board (and a senior adviser to Mayor de Blasio) says it was happy to invite López Rivera because it considers him innocent.

Hmm: President Bill Clinton offered him clemency back in the ’90s — if he renounced violence. López Rivera refused. (Sadly, President Barack Obama wasn’t as picky.)

Back in the ’70s, 120-odd bombings by López Rivera’s FALN terrorized innocents across America. The 1974 terror attack on Fraunces Tavern here in the city killed four.

Yet the cause was pathetic: In multiple referenda, the voters of Puerto Rico have rejected independence time and again.

Limousine liberals like Mark-Viverito and her circle can afford to romanticize a lost cause and ignore the lives shattered in its name. And ambitious politicians like Schneiderman can take political profit from playing along. Too bad they have the power to ruin a fine parade in their selfishness.