Mayor De Blasio Decides To Make His Own Luck—Appoints William Bratton Top Cop
12/06/2013
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The upcoming mayor of New York City has decided he's not going to wait around for the Crown Heightses of New York to unravel his term, the way they destroyed the career of the last mayor elected as a Democrat. Today, Bill De Blasio named the brains behind Rudy Giuliani's operation, William Bratton, as his top cop.

By the way, here's a candid interview that Bratton gave in Toronto in 2006 that you might find interesting reading. (De Blasio would probably prefer that it stay obscure.)

Bratton was also head of the police department in Boston and Los Angeles. Appointing Bratton cost Los Angeles mayor Jim Hahn a second term. Hahn, a white liberal Democrat, had been elected in 2001 over Antonio Villaraigosa by a fragile coalition of blacks and Republicans. When the black police chief Bernard Parks' term was up, Hahn decided to let him go and pick the top available guy in the country, Bratton. This angered blacks, costing Hahn re-election in 2005.

I suspect that it's not going to work like that in New York this time. New York is too important to too many important people to let petty black politics get in the way of law and order. But, we shall see.

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