Politicians by nature are full of shit but Flanagan is fuller than most:
After Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan accused Mayor Bill de Blasio of not lobbying forcefully enough on extending mayoral control of city schools, de Blasio’s team says that wasn’t the case.
Instead, it was Flanagan who failed to return personal calls made by de Blasio on the issue.
“The mayor and his team conducted a great deal of outreach with Senator Flanagan, his team, and Senators in his conference, especially those from New York City, throughout the legislative process,” said spokeswoman Karen Hinton. “At a certain point Senator Flanagan simply stopped returning the mayor’s personal calls. The mayor also repeatedly offered to attend a hearing in Albany and testify on the merits of mayoral control. The mayor always welcomes the opportunity to remind individuals of the broad, bipartisan support mayoral control has historically enjoyed in New York City, as well as its proven track record of success.”
Good for de Blasio having Hinton call Flanagan out for this bullshit.
Flangan and Cuomo tag-teamed up on de Blasio, which is fine - that's how it goes in politics.
But Flanagan doesn't get to act all sanctimonious about the tag team match.
Clearly neither Flanagan nor Cuomo wanted de Blasio to get more than a year extension of mayoral control of schools in NYC - this despite pretty broad support from the business leaders who send an awful lot of money both Flanagan's and Cuomo's way.
Flanagan and Cuomo wanted to stick it to de Blasio, humiliate him with the one year extension, and force him to come hat in hand next year when the extension is up.
That's why Flanagan stopped returning de Blasio's calls.
That's cool - but it's also cool for de Blasio's office to call bullshit on Flanagan.
