Since he was elected to succeed Michael Bloomberg as New York City’s mayor, Mayor Bill DeBlasio has earned a reputation for chronic tardiness. He is routinely 15, 30, 45 minutes or more late for appointments and public events, and has shown little resolve to deal with the problem. The most recent instance of  the mayor operating on “DeBlasio time” came yesterday, when he arrived late for a memorial event  to honor  the 260 people who died on American Airlines Flight 587 thirteen years ago. This time he was only 20 minutes late-–not bad, for him–but it meant that he was late for the scheduled moment of silence, which occurred at 9:16 AM, the exact moment the plane crashed in Queens, on November 12, 2001. According to the family member who solemnly rang a bell to signify the moment, DeBlasio’s aides asked her to stall until the mayor graced the gathered mourners with his presence. He is being roundly slammed for the episode, in the public and in the local media.

DeBlasio had excuses, as the habitually tardy always do. Sometimes the excuses are legitimate, and may be in DeBlasio’s case: it doesn’t matter. If you are always late, you forfeit  the benefit of excuses, even legitimate ones. DeBlasio said his boat to the event was delayed by fog, and that he just didn’t get rolling fast enough.  “I was just not feeling well this morning. I had a very rough night, ” he explained. “I woke up sluggish, and I should have gotten myself moving quicker … just woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep and I felt really sluggish and off-kilter this morning.”

Literally nobody seems to be sympathetic. Wrote Ann Althouse: “He’s an idiot…He thinks people will have sympathy over his struggles with a “rough night.” 260 people died in a plane crash!”

Habitual tardiness has many causes. A prominent association executive who I worked for told me that tardiness was a useful power move, making everyone wait to show that you are the one calling the shots. Of course, it is implicitly disrespectful of everyone waiting, whether the late arrival is intentional or not. It communicates to others that the late arrival doesn’t value their time as much as he or she values his own priorities. It is rude and disrespectful, and when the conduct is repeated, apologies and excuses don’t and shouldn’t work. Everyone knows why you are late. Either you just don’t care, or you are a disorganized boob or, as is often the case, both.

Whichever underlying cause is at play, this conduct implicates and undermines trust. In March, a psychologist was asked to comment on DeBlasio’s habitual lateness. “There’s no question that if you are late that it affects your reputation and that people lose their ability to trust you, especially in politics, especially when you’re in public office,” Dr. Harris Stratyner said then. “I feel badly for the mayor that he’s doing that to himself.”

I don’t. I feel badly for New Yorkers that they elected an arrogant, disrespectful mayor. Here was DeBlasio’s answer when he was asked in March about criticism of his habitual tardiness:

“I think the important this is when you get elected to do a job like this, responsible for 8.4 million people with every conceivable subject matter, my job is to do the best for the people. That’s what matters. The rest is noise.”

“Just noise.” In other words, “Screw ’em. I’m the Mayor. I’ll get there when I feel like it.”

Althouse is right. DeBlasio’s an idiot.

And he isn’t trustworthy.

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Facts: CBS 1, 2, 3

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts, and seek written permission when appropriate. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work or property was used in any way without proper attribution, credit or permission, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.

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