Mayor Bill de Blasio took charge of New York City on Wednesday with a forceful Inaugural Address and pledged to begin the head-on attack on "the inequality crisis" as he had promised. He repeated the bullet points from his campaign, but insisted that progressive talking would now give way to progressive governing, without dilution or dithering. "We won't wait," Mr. de Blasio said again and again. "We'll do it now."
It was an encouraging moment, as the mayor vowed to make New York a better, fairer place for everyone.
Mr. de Blasio's words carried an indictment: the city had become unjust and unlivable for too many of the poor and working class. But he tempered this complaint, as he should have, with a New Year's Day call to civic unity and optimism. "We will succeed as One City," he said.
Too bad the speakers on stage with him didn't get the unity part, marring the event with backward-looking speeches both graceless and smug. Worst among them, but hardly alone, was the new public advocate, Letitia James, who used her moment for her own head-on attack: on the 12 years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In doing so, she made a prop of a 12-year-old girl named Dasani, who had to hold the Bible and Ms. James's hand as Ms. James called for a government "that cares more about a child going hungry than a new stadium or a new tax credit for a luxury development."
Dasani was profiled in a recent series of articles in The Times illustrating how bad things get for homeless families in the shelter system. Ms. James turned her into Exhibit A of an Inauguration Day prosecution: the People v. Mayor Bloomberg. So did the pastor whose invocation likened New York to a "plantation," and Harry Belafonte, who strangely laid the problem of America's crowded prisons at the feet of the former mayor, an utterly bogus claim, while saying Mr. Bloomberg shared responsibility for the nation's "deeply Dickensian justice system."
Mr. Bloomberg had his mistakes and failures, but he was not a cartoon Gilded Age villain. He deserved better than pointless and tacky haranguing from speakers eager to parrot Mr. de Blasio's campaign theme. It was up to former President Bill Clinton, ad-libbing some gracious thanks to Mr. Bloomberg, and Mr. de Blasio, who did the same, to try to bring the event back to a grown-up level.
The low and high points of Wednesday's ceremony well illustrate the challenge for the mayor. There is frustration and a hunger for a new direction in the city. That's why Mr. de Blasio was elected. But as he promises to take "dead aim" against problems as vast and daunting as inequality and injustice, he is boldly raising expectations for sweeping solutions he — like any mayor — has limited ability to deliver.
Mr. de Blasio, in a superb campaign, showed the keen judgment of a surfer who spots the swell before it becomes a cresting wave. He deserves credit for an ambitious, admirable agenda. Progressive values run deep in this city, and Mr. de Blasio is right that New York at this moment needs to regain touch with its proud history and character.
Everyone in the city should be looking forward to his efforts to give a voice to the voiceless, to ease the suffering of the poor, and to increase opportunities for all. The emphasis should be on "looking forward." After, of course, he handles this week's snowstorm.
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