Mayor Bill de Blasio’s comments about the media following Saturday’s execution-style killing of two New York Police Department officers briefly unified journalists in criticism of Gotham’s most visible political leader, but the temporary unity was soon replaced with the usual sharp differences between Left and Right media.
The mayor suggested Monday that those protesting the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white officers in Missouri and New York suspend their activities as the city mourns the deaths of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. He also denounced the fierce anti-police rhetoric that has dominated many of the demonstrations.
But then de Blasio blamed journalists for exacerbating racial tensions in the city, saying they “enable” divisive voices.
The mayor’s comments were not well received, quickly drawing criticism across the media’s ideological spectrum.
“This presser not doing de Blasio any favors,” the Huffington Post’s Ethan Klapper said.
“It took two cop executions for de Blasio to finally denounce violent rhetoric against NYPD,” the New York Post tweeted.
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly demanded de Blasio’s resignation: “[H]e has disgraced the office of mayor of New York City. He should resign.”
Shock and grief about the murders was also bipartisan in its tone. These killings are “horrible and must be condemned,” Salon’s Joan Walsh said.
“Please take a moment and pray for the families of the two NYPD officers,” Fox News’ Todd Starnes added.
However, these reactions and the blunt assessments of de Blasio’s performance soon gave way to familiar finger-pointing as more customary Left-Right media alignments reappeared.
Some conservatives, for example, blamed MSNBC’s Al Sharpton and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for supposedly inciting violence and nurturing an environment in which it could flourish.
“Two words rebut the argument that Obama and [de Blasio] have been even-handed in their approach to race and police: Al Sharpton,” Fox News’ Brit Hume said.
“Obama and Holder have been enthusiastically promoting anti-cop race-baiter Sharpton for years because they agree,” conservative talk radio host Mark Levin claimed.
In response, liberal commentators vigorously defended “anti-police brutality” protesters, arguing that the right to free speech and freedom of expression weren’t responsible for New York’s double homicide.
“Weird how the same folks who claim protest rhetoric caused police killings are now using incredibly overheated rhetoric to blame protesters,” said Cosmopolitan senior political writer Jill Filipovic.
Perhaps most notable, though, was how the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart and Eugene Robinson — both of whom have often accused Tea Party figures like Sarah Palin of employing divisive rhetoric and encouraging violence — rushed to defend Democrats against the same accusation.
“It is absurd to have to say this, but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, activist Al Sharpton and President Obama are in no way responsible for the coldblooded assassination of two police officers in Brooklyn on Saturday,” Robinson wrote Monday, defending protesters from the claim that their violent anti-police rhetoric had anything to do with Saturday’s slayings. “A disturbed career criminal … committed this unspeakable atrocity by himself.”
Capehart echoed Robinson Tuesday, writing: “Mayor Bill de Blasio was right to push back on negative protest narrative.”
“Extremists always find a way to drown out the voices of the majority. They always find a way to overshadow the call for justice. But de Blasio was correct to stand up for the overwhelming majority of protesters who exercised their constitutionally protected right to free speech, to protest and to engage in civil disobedience (emphasis on civil),” he wrote. “Now, if we could put the civil back into civil discourse, maybe the healing could begin in the Big Apple.”
Some cautious notes were sounded. Hot Air’s Noah Rothman, for example, said that, despite the Left’s apparent double standard in tone, it’s probably best for the Right to avoid petty tit-for-tat in response to the NYPD murders.
“While it is appropriate to question what role rhetoric played in this shooting, it is probably not a course in which conservatives should become overly invested,” he wrote, reminding his readers of the “frenzied speculation about how the Tea Party had likely inspired” acts of violence.
The press was “wrong and reckless, and hindsight demonstrates how clearly those accusations were founded only in the left’s political distaste for the Tea Party,” he added. “Similarly, conservatives’ dislike for liberal elected officials may end up coloring the dissection of their unhelpful rhetoric.”
