When You Become The Thing You Hate

It’s come to this: a Cathie Black equivalency:

“Case closed,” the mayor said this week, adopting the move-it-along-folks attitude that has quickly become a de Blasio signature during his first nine months in office.

It is not unusual for mayors to want irritating story lines to go away. But the Noerdlinger episode has fueled a broader question about Mr. de Blasio and the values of his young administration: how a onetime champion of transparency and accountability can square those ideals with the newfound power — and frustrations — of his office.

As a candidate, Mr. de Blasio pledged an ask-me-anything era at City Hall, promoting himself as a different, friendlier breed of political leader. And as public advocate, he frequently assailed former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for standing by senior aides, such as the former schools chief Cathleen P. Black, who had found themselves under fire.

Now, experiencing some of the same difficulties faced by his predecessors, Mr. de Blasio is responding with the same sort of peevishness and obfuscation he once bemoaned.

I Don’t Need Your Reasons; Don’t Tell Me ‘Cause It Hurts

I know just what you’re saying, so please stop explaining. Don’t tell me cause it hurts:

“He’s not just a talker,” the mother of a prekindergarten child says of Mr. de Blasio, peering into the camera. “He takes action.”

And it hit inboxes on the same morning that thousands of charter school supporters held a rally, promoted by Eva S. Moskowitz — an antagonist of Mr. de Blasio’s who has acknowledged thinking about running for mayor in 2017 herself.

But the video, sent in an email on Thursday from a City Hall address, under the city seal, to a list of Mr. de Blasio’s campaign supporters, among others, raised questions among legal experts and good-government groups about whether it was an appropriate form of official communication.

A Core Set Of Values And Beliefs That Align With This Administration

They love, love, love that line; I wish someone would finally reveal what it means:

A senior advisor to Mayor Bill de Blasio is in a serious relationship with a convicted killer and interstate drug trafficker whose most recent run-in with the law happened late last year — when he nearly ran over a New Jersey police officer while driving her car, records show.

[. . .]

When contacted about their relationship and McFarlan’s comments, the mayor’s office backed Noerdlinger as a key aide to the administration, but said it did not tolerate derogatory comments about police.

“No one at City Hall condones criminal behavior or disparagement of the NYPD, including Rachel,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Rebecca Katz. “Rachel is her own person. She is a strong, independent woman who possesses a core set of values and beliefs that align with this administration.”

Nelson De Bono, Mayor To The World

Because if there’s one thing voters value, it’s courageously traveling abroad to raise your international profile and speak platitudes to foreign audiences:

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, a virtual unknown not so long ago, is now determined to cultivate a profile on the international stage. And Wednesday brought his biggest foreign splash yet, a trans-Atlantic trip to Manchester, England, where Mr. de Blasio urged Labour Party leaders to adopt his theme of income inequality as they seek to retake 10 Downing Street next year.

Swapping out garbage pickup in Queens for the rarefied air of European politics can be a delicate balance for a mayor, barely nine months into the job, trying to run a city whose social problems are far from solved. Mr. de Blasio’s advisers say he remains focused on municipal matters above all else.

That you can accomplish all this while keeping a deft handle on things back home is even more inspiring:

A week after Hizzoner dropped Staten Island Chuck in front of a crowd of spectators on Feb. 2, the winter-weather prognosticator died of internal injuries — and then the coverup began, The Post has learned.

Staten Island Zoo officials went to great lengths to hide the death from the public and keep secret the fact that “Chuck” was actually “Charlotte,” a female imposter, sources said Wednesday.

The stand-in was found dead in her enclosure at the Staten Island Zoo on Feb. 9 — and a necropsy determined she died from “acute internal injuries,” sources said.

She had fallen nearly 6-feet when the mayor lost his grip during the Groundhog Day photo-op. Sources said her injuries were consistent with a fall.

Oh, The Things That We Put Our Hands On . . .

When I dip you dip we dip:

On housing policy, where Mr. de Blasio has spoken of a significant break from the Bloomberg years, the new administration has also strained to identify differences on some projects. At a groundbreaking in April for the first phase of an affordable housing development in East New York, Brooklyn, Mr. de Blasio said he planned to count 278 units from the complex, negotiated under Mr. Bloomberg, toward his goal of 200,000 affordable units in 10 years.

“The things that we put our hands on and help to achieve, we are counting,” Mr. de Blasio said then.

Asked at the same event whether there were significant differences between the terms negotiated at the complex by the last administration and the final plan, Mr. de Blasio’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development, Alicia Glen, said no.