Walcott, DOE Get NY Times To Shill For Them

This article in today's NY Times about the altercation NYC schools chancellor Dennis Walcott got into with two NYPD officers last week when a car he was riding in allegedly failed to use a turn signal is COMPLETELY from Walcott's side.

Clearly the Bloomberg administration must have been worried about the story that surfaced in yesterday's NY Post that had Walcott allegedly shouting "You have no right to stop us!" when the car he was riding in pulled was over by the officers.

Coupled with the NYPD ticket-fixing scandal, the Walcott: "You have no right to stop us!" story adds to a picture of a city where wheelers and dealers get off for infractions while you or I would be pulled into jail with a disorderly conduct arrest for similar behavior.

In addition, the story makes Walcott - who is trying to be the anti-Cathie Black as head of the NYCDOE - sound pretty much like Cathie Black.

Black - famed for mocking parents at a Panel for Educational Policy meeting and promoting birth control as a solution to school overcrowding - would also say something like "You have no right to stop me!" when pulled over by the cops.

After all, privilege has its perks.

The Bloomberg people know that and they are sensitive to the problems it causes.

That's why they got their side of the story out to the Times, saying Walcott was not "difficult" (as the Post article reported), Walcott never tried to pull rank and Walcott never tried to avoid a ticket.

Perhaps all of that is true.

But since it is NYCDOE Natalie Ravitz saying it, and not the two police officers who were there, we ought not to take ANY of this at face value.

Ravtiz lies for a living. That's her job. Whatever she says Walcott says happened in the incident is hearsay at best, jive at worst.

And since EVERYTHING in this article pertaining to the incident is from Walcott's side, I say EVERYTHING in the story is hearsay at best, jive at worst.

And given the track record of the Bloomberg administration in the last nine years, I would lean on the jive part.

Unfortunately, with the cops now being investigated by Internal Affairs and with the Bloomberg administration acting very aggressively to get out in front of this story, we may never get the truth of what happened that night.

You can be sure they will work extra hard to make sure the chancellor isn't tagged as a person of privilege who indignantly got into the faces of cops when they stopped him for failure to use a turn signal.

Especially when City Hall knows that if you or I acted the same way, we'd be spending the weekend in Rikers Island.