Team Adams’s constant bellyaching about City Hall’s media coverage is getting tired.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Mayor Adams’ chief adviser, blasted city media outlets at the annual clergy breakfast recently: “The papers don’t report the good work” of his administration.
In Brownsville later that night, after introducing his five female deputy mayors of color and others in his racially and ethnically diverse administration, Adams ranted to his predominantly black audience: “Have you seen this much chocolate leading the city of New York?”
“Go down the line. Look at who’s here. This is representative of the city. That’s why people are hating on me,” he whined.
Just as his black card was hitting the table, Adams threw down the “Rudy Giuliani” card: “Who did we get after David Dinkins? Giuliani.”
Then — BLAM! — out came the conspiracy card: “It was a set up” and “a setback.”
Adams further claimed he’s getting beat up, just like the city’s first black mayor.
“It took us 30 years after what they did to David Dinkins. They wore him down so much that black folks didn’t come out to vote,” he decried.
Adams didn’t name any names or give any concrete examples of the looming conspiracy to oust the Big Apple’s second black mayor.
Yet unlike during the Dinkins-era 34 years ago, every level of city and state government today looks like “Señor Swagger,” starting with City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a black woman, who leads a predominantly African American, Latino and Asian chamber.
There’s Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a “high melanin” man.
In Albany, the state is led by Gov. Hochul, a white woman who adores him.
The lieutenant governor, attorney general, Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader are all black.
The Democratic conferences of both legislative chambers are majority minority.
Heck, four of the five borough Democratic Party “bosses” are black or female.
The demographics of the city’s district attorneys are similar.
The levers of political and governmental power are in the hands of nonwhite leaders who look like Adams.
I imagine Dave Dinkins looking down from Heaven and saying, “Let’s trade places, Eric.”
We get that he and his team are still smarting from the ass-whupping Speaker Adrienne Adams and council Democrats just gave Señor Swagger, overriding his How Many Stops Act veto.
The same has happened in Albany, where Adams has alienated leaders and lawmakers many believe ought to be his allies.
But it’s not the media’s job to cheerlead for him or gloss over his policy failures.
It certainly wasn’t Room 9 reporters, editorial boards or the invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan that grew the council’s police-stops and solitary confinement ban votes from 35-9 in December to an even more embarrassing 42-9 override Tuesday.
Yet underneath his finger-pointing at the mainstream media are three fingers pointing back at him, his legislative affairs unit and inner circle.
To paraphrase the Bard: The fault, dear Eric, lies not in our newspapers but in yourself.
Team Get Stuff Done isn’t getting it done because key players and decision-makers are, to be blunt, in over their heads.
You sense that the mayor’s “City of Yes” catchphrase is Freudian shorthand for a “City Hall of Yes [Men].”
I’m told no one on his team will ever say no to him.
Per some knowledgeable political veterans, “Eric talks to a lot of people for advice, but in the end, he only listens to himself.”
Others confirm he’s surrounded by pals who tell him what he wants to hear.
These sources aren’t haters, either — they love the Big Apple and want Adams to succeed.
And who doesn’t enjoy Hizzoner’s bodacious self-confidence and can-do (no wrong) attitude?
But a mayor who is his own counsel and chief advisor has a one-term mayor for a client.
Adams has time to rejigger his operation, put people in place who will keep him from getting in his own way and actually get stuff done that’ll turn around his miserable poll numbers before next year’s elections.
I understand his frustration that no matter how much of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s mess he cleans up, credit eludes him because of new, overshadowing issues: migrants, corruption probes, a hostile Albany and City Council, etc.
But it’s no excuse for falsely blaming the media and raising the specter of racist forces undermining him.
Adams needs to stop the bellyaching and playing the race card.
Whether he’s the second or 50th black mayor, New Yorkers want him to succeed — because if he does, they do, too.
Post editorial board member Michael Benjamin is a former New York assemblyman.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
