Ray Kelly vs. the Council

Bravo Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. If only the federal government would follow his lead, we'd all be a lot safer, and the Islamist’s would be on the run.

FROM NYPOST.COM:

Ray Kelly vs. the Council

Last Updated: 10:49 PM, October 7, 2011

Posted: October 08, 2011

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly stood tall Thursday during a distasteful hearing of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee -- which apparently let itself be pushed by a bogus Associated Press series into grilling the NYPD’s vaunted anti-terrorism unit.

Council members assailed the top cop for the sterling efforts of his intelligence division -- the fine folks who’ve spent the years since 9/11 toiling day and night to thwart plots against the city. They accused the NYPD of “profiling” Muslims.

“We don’t racially profile,” Kelly fired back. “We follow leads wherever they take us.” Hear, hear.

Yes, those leads have drawn undercover cops into stores, cafes and mosques to track radical activity. But that’s a good thing: It’s helped thwart some 13 plots against New York since 9/11.

Kelly refused to apologize for a decade of brilliant police work. Good for him: New Yorkers are surely grateful that the NYPD keeps abreast of extremist hot-spots.

And no surprise that his display of spine didn’t win him many fans on the council: The script for the hearing was written a month ago by the AP, with its breathless “exposés” of supposed NYPD spying on Muslims.

It was a disgraceful piece of agitprop -- but the council is gobbling it up.

(Then again, no one ever accused council members of being able to think for themselves; who can forget that hearing not that long ago when they actually read from cue cards prepared by the teachers union?)

Enter Robert Jackson, who notes that he’s the council’s only Muslim member. “The question I need to know,” he jabbed, “have I ever been under surveillance by the NYPD?”

Jackson’s attempt to spar with Kelly, of course, was a mere publicity stunt.

But Kelly deftly parried, answering the question with the seriousness it deserved: “Have you paid all your summonses?”

Even now, Kelly says, the NYPD is bracing for attacks -- including blowback from a missile strike in Yemen that killed al Qaeda member Samir Khan.

Khan, Kelly noted, “once lived in Queens, had extensive contacts in New York City and published the English-language Inspire magazine -- which instructed lone wolves on how to build bombs at home” and recently put Grand Central in the crosshairs.

Clueless council members may see political hay in demagoguing the profiling trope, but if they’re looking to weaken the NYPD’s counter-terror effort, they’re playing with fire.

Then again, how would they know that -- unless the AP or teachers union spelled it out for them?