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by Robert Lederman
robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net
June 16, 2000The fanatically pro-Giuliani scribes at the NY Post editorial page have outdone themselves in their 8th editorial attack on my paintings of Mayor Giuliani as Hitler. In the 6/16/2000 Post the entire 1308 word column is dedicated to a typically Giuliani-esque explanation for why the NYPD apparently did little if anything to respond to an hours-long series of sexual attacks and robberies targeting young women and female tourists in Central Park in broad daylight on 6/11/2000.
According to the Post, NYPD morale has been so damaged by the critical words of Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton-and by my paintings of Giuliani as Hitler-that the poor cops were just unable to respond. Here is a brief excerpt from the editorial:
Excerpted from: NY Post Editorial 6/16/2000
(The entire Editorial is reprinted below.)THE HIDDEN VILLAINS OF CENTRAL PARK
All of those who traipsed to Sharptons mass arrest-a-thons, surrounded by signs comparing Mayor Giuliani to Hitler and New York cops to the Ku Klux Klan, are equally guilty. That campaign had one target. While ostensibly a criticism of policing tactics, its sole purpose was to cripple Giulianis political career, precisely at the moment when he was talking about running for the Senate himself, with Clinton as his likely foe. In their rush to destroy the mayor, however, Clinton and Al Sharpton and their allies did incalculable damage to the effectiveness of the NYPD - a force that deserves credit for having transformed New York into a safe city once again.
Now keep in mind, the Post editorial page is the equivalent of a Giuliani press release. Therefore, it is a good bet that the ideas expressed in this column accurately depict the private thinking of our Mayor on this subject. Apparently, Giuliani also believes it was Hillary Clinton, Al Sharpton and my paintings that ruined his political career rather than his adultery, dumping his wife on TV, his phony Senate campaign, spraying toxic nerve gas on eight million people, lying at every press conference or his blatant racism.
As the reality of the selective enforcement and false statistics behind the Giuliani myth come to light, the outrages in Central Park will deconstruct that myth of the Mayor being a crime fighter like no Al Sharpton rally or cardboard painting could ever hope to do.
While preventing any future installments of Giuliani in public office has indeed been my goal, I never imagined I actually had so much power. In light of the fact that they consider me so influential, perhaps the Post could reverse their cowardly policy of never again mentioning my name.
From: NY POST EDITORIAL 6/16/98
DEMONIZING RUDY GIULIANI
This image [Giuliani as Hitler] was first bandied about by an obnoxious twerp who claims to represent a group called A.R.T.I.S.T. - but which really ought to be called M.O.R.O.N. - who is outraged that the mayor attempted to enforce plainly written statutes regarding sidewalk clutter in front of the Metropolitan Museum. For this, the twerp (whose name we shall never again use because he deserves no more public mention) imagines that Rudy Giuliani deserves comparison with the personification of evil in this century.
What is most interesting about the latest editorial is that it implicitly acknowledges that the cops knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it-exactly the premise of my two articles on the attacks and of the reports of numerous witnesses. The Steve Dunleavy column in the same edition of the Post also explicitly states that there was in fact an NYPD policy to not interfere. Next to the Posts John Podhoretz, Dunleavy is the biggest Giuliani fan and defender in all of NYC. He has lots of connections to the NYPD brass-in other words, he knows what he is talking about on this.
That means that the orders to not enforce fundamental laws about sexual assaults and public disorder had to come from none other than Rudy Giuliani himself, which is also the exact premise I have been advocating. NYPD officers should be outraged that the Post is alleging that they did nothing to stop the attacks because of a morale problem, rather than that they were ordered to follow a hands-off policy in order to make the Mayor-who has been trying to depict himself in recent weeks as pro-minority-look good.
What the editorial deliberately distorts, as the Post has consistently done for years, is that most of the signs at the Diallo demos generally, and all of my Giuliani portraits at those and seven other years worth of demos, depicted the Mayor as a Nazi, not the NYPD. You may recall that Giuliani repeatedly lied about the signs, falsely claiming they depicted the cops as Nazis.
I hope the Post will give me an opportunity to explain to their readers why I make these paintings, why people want to carry them in protests and the very real connections between the Mayor and right wing elements with direct ties to the Nazis and to Nazi ideas on race and Eugenics. Their readers deserve to hear both sides.
The following is a list of the eight Post editorial page columns that have attacked my work.
NY POST 5/17/98 Editorial
THE ARTIST HUSTLE
NY POST EDITORIAL 6/16/98
DEMONIZING RUDY GIULIANI
N.Y. Post 8/20/98 EDITORIAL
FREE SPEECH -
OR FREE EXHIBITION SPACE?
NY Post Editorial 3/20/99
THE GIULIANI PILE-ON
Post 3/31/99 By JOHN PODHORETZ
THEY'RE AFTER RUDY,
NOT JUSTICE
Post 3/31/99 By MICHAEL MEYERS
AL'S CIVIL-RIGHTS COALITION:
A TRAVESTY OF DR. KING'S DREAM
NY Post 4/4/99 By ERIC FETTMANN
UNLIMITED COP-BASHING
HAS A PRICE
Today's Post editorial follows:
NY Post Editorial 6/16/2000
THE HIDDEN VILLAINS OF CENTRAL PARK
It has come time to add some perspective to Sundays outrageous sexual attacks in Central Park and the role played - or not played - by officers of the NYPD while the assaults were under way.
It has been said that some cops failed to do their duty Sunday, following the Puerto Rican Day Parade. If that proves to be the case, appropriate sanctions should - and doubtless will - be forthcoming.
But here's where the need for perspective comes in.
For more than a year now, the NYPD has been the focal point of a relentless campaign meant to cast the majority of its white officers as racists - and potential cold-blooded killers to boot.
The low point came when Hillary Rodham Clinton, first lady of the United States and would-be U.S. senator, stood at Al Sharptons side and outrageously declared the shooting of Amadou Diallo to have been a "murder."
Yes, she apologized - sort of. But it took a full month - time enough for polling and focus-group testing - before she fessed up to her mistake.
Even so, however, she admitted only that she "misspoke."
She was back to cop-bashing, however, after the shooting of Patrick Dorismond: "If this was an isolated incident,"said Clinton, "I wouldnt be talking about it and you wouldnt be asking about it."
In fact, it was a relatively isolated incident: Last year, 11 civilians were fatally shot by police here; a decade earlier, under Mayor David Dinkins, the number was 41 - without a single Al Sharpton press conference or mass-arrest campaign.
But Hillary Clinton is one of many pols who should have known better before they opened their mouths and said a lot of stupid things about the NYPD.
All of those who traipsed to Sharptons mass arrest-a-thons, surrounded by signs comparing Mayor Giuliani to Hitler and New York cops to the Ku Klux Klan, are equally guilty.
That campaign had one target. While ostensibly a criticism of policing tactics, its sole purpose was to cripple Giulianis political career, precisely at the moment when he was talking about running for the Senate himself, with Clinton as his likely foe.
In their rush to destroy the mayor, however, Clinton and Al Sharpton and their allies did incalculable damage to the effectiveness of the NYPD - a force that deserves credit for having transformed New York into a safe city once again.
Public Advocate Mark Green and Rep. Charles Rangel are part of the gang; theyre pressing the U.S. Justice Department to appoint a federal monitor to oversee the police on a day-to-day basis - a development that would force every cop to justify every single arrest he or she makes in order to prove a lack of racial bias.
Included also is the Rev. Calvin Butts, president of SUNY-Old Westbury, who declared that the Diallo shooting was
part of a campaign by Mayor Giuliani aimed at "reinforcing white supremacy in New York City" and that Patrick Dorismond was the victim of a "lynching."(Why Gov. Pataki hasn't caused Butts dismissal is a mystery, but its never too late to do the right thing.)
And don't forget the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a pro-Hillary tool thats agitating for a federal takeover of the department.
So why should anybody be surprised that some cops have been demoralized - even frightened - by the endless clamor.
Once again, cops felt the need to constantly look over their shoulders and second-guess their actions, for fear of being accused of racism and overly aggressive tactics.
Or, frankly, for fear of being indicted. Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, with his grossly overreaching murder charges in the Diallo case, taught beat cops a lesson that wont soon be forgotten.
Nor should it be.
Those who belong to the Al Sharpton school of cop-bashing would have the city believe that the NYPD has a deliberate policy of targeting black men for deadly "street justice."(Remember the offensive Art Spiegelman New Yorker magazine cover - the one that showed a grotesquely grinning cop aiming at human targets in a shooting gallery?)
This despite the fact that the NYPDs efforts have been most fruitful in minority neighborhoods.
There is no small irony in the fact that many of the same critics are now ripping the NYPD for being too passive.
On one level, the movement has slipped from the ridiculous to the sublime. The sight of Sharpton hogging the limelight as two college students announced plans to sue the city for $5 million because, they say, cops failed to be sufficiently aggressive, is too delicious for words.
But all this has consequences.
Who really doubts that anti-social behavior of the sort that simply wouldnt be tolerated at most other parades is indulged routinely at the Puerto Rican celebration.
The crackdown on alcohol use that has been seen in recent years at the St. Patricks Day Parade was obviously non-existent Sunday.
This doesnt excuse individual officers if they deliberately ignored complaints about the thugs who roamed Central Park Sunday. "We were just following orders" is no legitimate defense.
But we can understand the frustration many cops must be feeling. "Last week we were criticized for being the most aggressive police force," one perplexed Manhattan cop told The Post. "Now were being criticized for being the most passive."
The blame for this confusion rests squarely with the self-serving politicians and other opportunists for whom cop-bashing has become a way of life.
In this election season, put Hillary Rodham Clinton near the top of that dubious list.
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