How The Limousine Liberal Gave Way To The Rise Of The Helicopter Progressive

Just a good look all around:

Mayor de Blasio shut down a Little League baseball game in a Harlem park for more than an hour in August so police could ready a field for his helicopter, The Post has learned.

The chopper landing was then abruptly canceled after an angry dad started griping to cops about the intrusion, threatening to post pictures of the mayoral interruption on social media, a source said.

The extended seventh-inning stretch got underway at Harlem River Park during an Aug. 9 Little League game when the NYPD cleared the diamond of two under-14 teams, one dad told The Post.

The cops “basically told everybody to get off the field,” the dad said.

[. . .]

A former cop familiar with the situation told The Post police “were not happy” about having to arrange for de Blasio’s park landing.

The mayor’s office refused to comment on the aborted chopper ride, instead referring questions to the NYPD.

“The security and transportation of the mayor are determined by the NYPD,” said Deputy Commissioner John Miller. “We do not discuss the specifics of security.”

That was the same canned statement the department issued less than two weeks ago after The Post reported de Blasio had been picked up by a chopper landed in a Prospect Park ballfield.

Not Just Annoying, “Extremely Annoying”

We finally learn something useful from the Podesta Wikileaks email trove:

The hacked emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta call Mayor Bill de Blasio a “terrorist” for declining to endorse his former boss and refer to him as a “bit insufferable.”

[. . .]

When Clinton’s campaign was having issues with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Podesta wrote in June 2015 to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin that Garcetti should be added “to the BdB file.”

“Adding to the list! What is the deal with mayors these days,” Abedin replied.

Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, advised Podesta to ignore de Blasio’s Progressive Agenda Committee.

“Politically, we are not getting any pressure to join this from our end. I leave it to you guys to judge what that means for you. But I’m not sweating it,” Tanden said.

After de Blasio reported to Tanden, Podesta and Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook that he had praised Clinton during an appearance on “Morning Joe” and would “spend the next year and a half battling conservatives at every turn,” Tanden said she found the mayor to be annoying.

“I find him a bit insufferable. Sorry if I let my extreme annoyance show,” Tanden wrote to Podesta.

De Blasio joked Wednesday that he was “crushed” to hear about the emails.

“When you are nudging your friends to go farther sometimes people push back or find that unpleasant,” de Blasio said.

The mayor said he goes “back a long way” with Clinton and her inner circle.

Maybe Point The Finger At Cuomo For Blocking A Lane On The BQE To “Build” A New Kosciuszko Bridge?

It was a simple helicopter ride:

The grass of a baseball field in Prospect Park shuddered under the blades of a New York Police Department helicopter on Friday afternoon. Dust flew in the air. Soon, Mayor Bill de Blasio clambered aboard.

In a car, it might have taken 30 minutes or longer for him to make the roughly seven-mile drive from his old Brooklyn stamping grounds to an event in Queens.

By air, the trip — a fantasy of nearly every New Yorker ever caught in traffic on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — was considerably shorter.

But the headache it caused Mr. de Blasio on Monday might not have been worth the trip, as a photograph and a video of the copter incongruously parked in the middle of a city park ricocheted around the internet, and reporters waited outside City Hall to ask him about it.

The attention to his flight presented a no-win situation for Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who has been criticized for arriving late to events and now finds himself justifying his attempts to arrive on time.

All of which is to say, there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it:

Hizzoner, who continues to refuse to disclose what kept him so busy that he needed to take a taxpayer-funded whirlybird to Long Island City, was hanging out in business casual and strolling around his old Park Slope neighborhood on that Friday, Oct. 14, according to locals.

He had likely been at Bar Toto, the Italian eatery that often serves as his second office.

He’s there nearly every Friday — a day when his schedule usually gives him the afternoon off — making calls on his phone and catching up with his former neighbors that stop by, according to sources familiar with his schedule.

The restaurant is just three blocks from Prospect Park, and a six minute walk from where the helicopter took off during the evening rush-hour.

“He’s comfortable there,” said one source.

[A Brooklyn resident] said she saw the mayor around 3 p.m. in a white button down shirt with no jacket in the south end of the neighborhood walking in the direction of Bar Toto.

[. . .]

That 3 p.m. sighting helps fill in the gaps from the mayor’s radio appearance at 1:25 p.m. and his chopper ride around 6:30 p.m.

Workers at Bar Toto confirmed that he is a regular presence on Fridays but suddenly got amnesia when asked if he was there that particular Friday.

When You Somehow Find A Way To Make The Times Editorial Board Incredulous . . .

. . . and also invite inevitable current Donald Trump references . . .:

If Mayor Bill de Blasio has decided that he is going to answer questions only from “real media outlets,” and not The New York Post, why doesn’t he just go all the way? Revoke The Post’s credentials, and bar its reporters from City Hall and make an example of them. Let the other reporters learn not to offend His Honor. And if they don’t learn, he can stop taking all questions.

Then the mayor will be free to do his business in peace and quiet, his message unfiltered, his administration shown only in its best light, through news releases and photo ops.

That is the absurd logic of Mr. de Blasio’s eruption at a news conference on Thursday. He snapped at reporters’ questions as unfit to be answered. And he refused to respond to Yoav Gonen, City Hall bureau chief of The Post, which he belittled as a “right-wing rag.”

[. . .]

New York has a long tradition of outspoken mayors who have used and abused the media, who have belittled and ranted at reporters, while aides smirked and fawned. But the mayors have always talked. Mr. de Blasio says he is not playing that game, at least not with The Post. But it’s not just The Post — Mr. de Blasio got petulant when pressed by a reporter from Newsday for information about an inquiry into the Administration for Children’s Services and the death of a 6-year-old boy. “Come on — try and ask a real question,” he snapped. Then came this exchange with a Wall Street Journal reporter:

Q. I’m just curious — taking questions once a week, and you know, insulting newspapers, media outlets — how do you think it’s helping you? How is it helping you?

A. It doesn’t have to help. It doesn’t have to help. It’s the — well, I’m saying what I think is the truth. And by the way, I think the people share a lot of my view.

A lot of people do share his view. We call them Donald Trump supporters.

How Did We Blow A Golden Opportunity?

Elections certainly do have consequences:

After the meetings and before visits to several receptions, de Blasio spoke to a string of reporters in the lobby of the downtown Marriott, his 6 foot, 5 inch frame folded in a booth just feet away from a bar and fountain that burbled around a dull chrome sculpture.

“We as a party have moved to a more progressive place, we’ve certainly moved leftward,” he said. “We need to win the election and be organized to actually then implement those changes, so one of the things I’m focused on is connecting with my fellow progressives and urging them to be ready to hit the ground running after the November election.”

“That could come from a party structure, that could come from external progressive forces, that could come from a rich combination of the two,” he continued. “But what I fear from historical perspective is, if it doesn’t come from somewhere, we’re going to look back and say, ‘how did we blow a golden opportunity.'”

This is decidedly a side track at the convention, with both Cuomo and the Clintons keeping de Blasio away from the main stage. It was unclear late Tuesday whether the mayor would be afforded a time to speak at one of his own delegation’s daily breakfasts, or whether Cuomo and de Blasio would ever occupy the same spotlight at the same time.

Cuomo told reporters Tuesday that he was still angling for a speaking slot on the convention’s final day. De Blasio’s aides announced he would speak at 4:30 on Wednesday, a subdued spot that almost ensured a small audience, as his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, offers an endorsement in prime time.