December 26, 2013
Lies of the Father: Chiara de Blasio's substance abuse admission was orchestrated by de Blasio camp like a celebrity in crisis
Lies of the Father: Chiara de Blasio's substance abuse admission was orchestrated by de Blasio camp like a celebrity in crisis
The Christmas Eve video release of Bill de Blasio's daughter revealing she struggled with drug and alcohol abuse and depression feels more like a political maneuver than an earnest holiday admission.
TODD MAISEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Video of Bill de Blasio’s daughter Chiara, admitting to drug and alcohol abuse and ongoing battle with depression, appears to be yet one more piece of old-time politicking.
Somehow, on Christmas Eve, the incoming mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, managed to turn his teenage daughter’s struggles with alcohol and drugs into one last campaign ad, even though this was the darker, flip side of the television commercial he ran in the summer about his teen son.
That commercial, of course, the one with the smiling kid with the afro, was as much a game-changer for de Blasio as his tale of two cities.
This was different, wasn’t as much about the bravery of de Blasio’s daughter, Chiara, as much as it was de Blasio and his rather cynical handlers getting out in front of the young woman’s story. And the way the whole thing was handled wasn’t as much about her as it was about her father and political expediency.
Though the video posted Christmas Eve features Chiara de Blasio opening up about drug and alcohol abuse, it seems hardly about her but more about her dad and politics.
It is why it all coming about Chiara de Blasio on Christmas Eve, for a Christmas Day news cycle in the newspapers, ends up looking like old-time politicking, from a politician who acts as if everything he does is brand-new.
You watch de Blasio here, standing in front of his Brooklyn home before he moves his wife and son and daughter into Gracie Mansion, and want to remind him, once and for all, that he’s got the gig, he can stop campaigning now.
But what happens now with de Blasio and his daughter shows you what happens when you use your family as much as he did to help himself first win the Democratic nomination and then win the election the way he did, which means going away. Maybe de Blasio has finally figured out that he doesn’t get to decide what is public and what is private with that family.
Dante de Blasio appeared in what could be the most successful political campaign ad of all time — thanks to his afro.
“This comes out now?” a guy I know who used to work in city government said on Wednesday. “Really?”
It comes out now, because de Blasio knew it would come out eventually, trying to stop a story like this is like trying to stop the ocean. He and his wife have known about their daughter’s issues with drugs and alcohol and depression; they knew about them during the campaign when they put her in a commercial that followed the wildly popular commercial with Dante de Blasio, one of the most successful in the history of politics in the city’s history.
One top Democrat I know said this at the time about the kid’s star turn on television: “Somehow the kid made everything real. And there was something about him that connected with real people.”
AARON SHOWALTER/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Chiara, along with her father, Mayor-elect Bill, and joined by her mother and brother, made brief statements after the video release outside their Brooklyn home. Perhaps one of their last appearances before they move into Gracie Mansion.
But the problems that his sister had, problems that apparently got worse when she went off to college, were just as real. It is suggested now that she wanted to speak out about those problems during the campaign, but apparently her parents were worried that speaking out that way might have affected her recovery, as if that recovery is somehow safer now, and strong enough to release this video.
The idea, though, that her father running for mayor would somehow have been less stressful for this young woman than her father actually being mayor, and the much brighter spotlight that comes with that, seems to be one more element of the de Blasio, modern-family fairy tale.
On the day when the video was released, the incoming mayor does not want to talk about when it was actually shot, or who was in charge of its production or content. All we know for sure is that we are talking about Bill de Blasio’s family again.
AARON SHOWALTER/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Watching the de Blasio family on Christmas Eve makes you want to remind them: You're not campaiging anymore.
By the way? You want nothing but the best for that family, and for this young woman, who now stands up this way and tells the world that the de Blasio family is more than the smiley-face picture of it we got during the campaign; the version of that family that the de Blasio campaign was selling with both hands, especially once they hit the jackpot with Dante’s commercial.
You want nothing but the best for his children and especially the young woman who discusses an intensely private struggle in a public way on the day before Christmas. Chiara de Blasio spoke of how she hoped everybody would watch the video, because it speaks for itself. Her father spoke of “incredible wisdom for someone who’s only 19 years old.”
Certainly that is what both of them, and the people who handle Bill de Blasio, want us to believe. But the idea that they released this during the holiday season because it would help others battling substance abuse during the holiday season is just another political fairy tale.
At the end of this, a landslide winner of November’s election and one who has created such excitement about a progressive and liberal city looks like another celebrity taking the advice of crisis managers here. Only it wasn’t his crisis, it was Chiara de Blasio’s.
It wasn’t about him, or what was best for him, or how things looked for him. It was about her.
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