Bloomberg

***

Former Sen. Alfonse DaAmato wouldnat understand a politician like Rick Santorum, as DaAmatoas pro-life stance has always been for sale to the highest political bidder (aDaAmato Fearing a Rick Role,a Feb. 20).

It was DaAmato who engineered George Patakias rise to the governorship only after first ensuring that Pataki dumped his original pro-life views. And DaAmato lost his own Senate seat to Charles Schumer partly because he was too ashamed of his pro-life stance to defend it in their debate.

Pro-life New Yorkers are sick of bait-and-switch pols like DaAmato. Santorum may not be the best vote-getter in this state, but at least heas not for sale.

Kathleen Murphy

Manhattan

***

GOP state leadership concerns about Santorum should be of no importance to conservative Republicans. The same leadership was invisible when gay marriage was passed with the help of three treacherous Republican senators.

Gov. Cuomo and his cohorts have had their way with the Republican Senate. On the most important social legislation of the past 20 years, we were deserted by the very people who are now concerned that they may not hold the senate if Santorum is the Republican presidential candidate.

Conservative Republicans should ask why they should care who controls the Senate.

What more damage can be done?

Thomas Callan

Glen Cove

***

The New York GOP is a circus clownas dream job. The party apparatus that lent its affiliation to Mayor Bloomberg and backed Dede Scozzafava has shown it has no clue what its base wants.

New York conservatives have been overruled by Northeastern amoderatesa for decades, and the GOP is worse off for it. The old guard must recognize that its failed attempts at moderating the Republican Party have destroyed what was already a tenuous base in a deep-blue state.

Republicans who buy into the mindset that DaAmato & Co. are promoting will serve to reelect President Obama. Principles should not be checked at the door because the GOP establishment labels a candidate atoo conservative.a

The time has come for conservatives to wrest the party back from the hacks and re-establish the platform set forth by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Whoever the GOP nominee is, weall be better served than we are by Obama.

J. Bacchi

West Hempstead

aMarty and I are going to lose our jobs in 679 days,a the mayor announced as he introduced the Beep at a press conference about a new jobs center inside the Brooklyn Public Library.

aI have a hunch one of us will actually be looking for a job in those six-hundred-something days,a responded Markowitz.

aThatas me,a interjected the mayor.

aOh, sure,a came back a skeptical Markowitz.

aI donat know why keeping the country safe is antithetical to the values of Yale,a the mayor said during a press conference about jobs in Brooklyn.

aFreedoms to do research, to teach, to give people a place where they can say what they want to say is defended by law enforcement throughout this country that works very hard to make sure we are safe and that the terrorists who want to take away the very values that Yale has, expounds and survives with [donat succeed].a

Bloombergas comments came in response to an e-mail message sent by Yale President Richard Levin to the university community denouncing the NYPDas actions.

aI am writing to state, in the strongest possible terms, that police surveillance based on religion, nationality or peacefully expressed political opinions are antithetical to the values of Yale, the academic community and the United States,a Levin said Monday night. aI want to make sure our community knows that the Yale Police Department has not participated in any monitoring by the NYPD and was entirely unaware of NYPD activities until the recent news reports.a

On Saturday, The Associated Press reported that city cops were dispatched to several universities across the northeast to monitor the activities of Muslim groups, including at Yale and six colleges within the five boroughs a Columbia, NYU, Queens, Baruch, Brooklyn and La Guardia Community.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said cops monitored student Web sites and collected publicly available information, but did so only between 2006 and 2007.

He pointed out that a dozen people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad had once been members of Muslim student organizations.

david.seifman@nypost.com

The Manhattan State Supreme Court decision blocks proposed requirements that people show theyare truly homeless, with documents if possible.

In December, the City Council voted to sue the Bloomberg administration over the requirements. The city delayed enacting them pending the court review.

The ruling said the administration didnat communicate properly with the City Council when making the policy changes.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn hailed the ruling. The new rules would have put thousands more New Yorkers on the street since they required apeople who could least shoulder ita to provide proof they have nowhere else to stay, Quinn said.

Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, said the city will appeal.

Shelter standards should apply to all, he said, or judges should explain to New Yorkers awhy they think that you should just have a right to walk in and say, aWhether or not I need services, give it to me.a a

The more liberal, the better, is the theme, so the race is on to expand spending, raise taxes and discover new needs the candidates promise to satisfy. If any of the four a Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, former Comptroller Bill Thompson and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer a supports pension reform or tax cuts, itas a secret.

But a funny thing has happened on the road to City Hall. Mayor Bloomberg put down a marker that could shatter conventional wisdom about what it will take to win.

Speaking to the Conference of Mayors last month about education reform, Bloomberg cited how crime reduction redefined what New York voters expect from their mayors. Saying that he and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani had proven that ahigh crime is not inevitable,a Bloomberg said, aNew Yorkers expect the streets to be the safest of any big city in the country a and voters, I think, will not elect any future mayor who isnat 110 percent committed to that goal.a

From his lips to votersa fingertips.

Crime has been a no-show in the race so far because Giuliani and Bloomberg took it off the front page. In their combined 18 years, reports of major felonies have declined by 77 percent, with murder down 81 percent.

The stats can be measured in lives saved, quality-of-life satisfaction and economic activity. Crime capitals arenat destination spots for tourists, entrepreneurs or college students a which Gotham is.

Yet those benefits could be at risk, and the candidates forced to compete over crime-fighting credentials, in a heartbeat. A sudden spate of high-profile crimes would spark concern about a return to the bad old days.

The candidates, in a panic because they are not planning an election about crime, will scramble to find something in their records that shows they are pro-police. They will search in vain.

That is not to say all are anti-police. Rather, they represent minor variations of standard-issue Democrats who echo national talking points of asocial justicea and afairness.a They have long records of demanding cops be purer than Caesaras wife on stop- and-frisk and gathering terror intelligence.

They are quick to express DEFCON-level outrage at any report of police misconduct, but nary a peep when cops do heroic things or are injured or killed on the job.

Some will argue they supported big police expenditures in the budget. Thatas significant, but not convincing that, on their watch, keeping streets safe would be a top priority.

Measuring how much money is spent has nothing to do with results. The test is convincing voters they will have an able police commissioner who has the leadership qualities and the strategies to prevent crime. In short, that they can find another Ray Kelly.

The test is also about whether a mayoras support for the NYPD crumples when things get hot. Bloomberg, while no Giuliani in defending the department, nonetheless consistently gives cops the benefit of the doubt and urges patience atil the facts come forth.

Each mayor redefines the job in ways that suit the issues, the times and his style. But fundamentals eventually reassert their dominance, and Bloomberg has done New York a favor by reminding us that keeping crime down is not a luxury. It is a basic requirement for anyone wanting to be mayor.

The Times may be a changina

Did you notice? Pigs are flying.

The New York Times has discovered that the growing number of out-of-wedlock births is a national problem. And get thisathe editors put the discovery on the front page, in the top right-hand column, their most prominent piece of real estate.

OK, the article ran last Saturday on a holiday weekend, which means lower readership. But it was still a giant leap across a culture divide for the paper to ring the alarm on a topic usually discussed only in conservative circles.

The impetus seems to be Charles Murrayas new book, aComing Apart,a which focuses on the cultural schism between upper- and lower-income whites. Murray cites differences on everything from obesity levels to rates of unmarried parents having children.

The Times actually broadens the debate to include politically incorrect racial breakdowns. It reports that 73 percent of black children born in 2009 were born to unmarried parents, compared with 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites. The overall number born to unmarried parents, it says, was 41 percent, and 53 percent when the mother was under age 30.

Surprisingly, the article quotes an expert saying that children in two-adult families do better in school and are happiera and doesnat accuse her of ahatea speech.

With so much of the paper still leaning left, only a Pollyanna would believe the Times is consistently fair and balanced. But I have spotted a few other instances recently where articles seemed to consciously avoid partisan code words and assumptions.

Perhaps new editor Jill Abramson aims to follow legendary Times editor Abe Rosenthal, who famously said he wanted his epitaph to be that aHe kept the paper straight.a We can live and hope.

Team bam redefines arationala

In an interview on CNN, Americaas top military man offered that the Obama administration sees Iran as a arational actor.a With that, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs, wandered into distinctly irrational weeds.

Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are making more sense. Visiting Israel, they criticized what McCain called the atensiona between the Obama administration and Israel, and found Dempseyas words especially strange.

McCain said it was impossible to see Iranas pursuit of nukes and threats of conflict as arational behavior.a Graham ticked off a list of things, including denying the Holocaust, as proof that Iran is anything but rational.

The concern is that Dempseyas comments werenat a slip of the tongue. They reflect a pattern where the White House seems to be talking itself into accepting a nuclear Iran.

Thatas not just irrational. Thatas insane.

Talk cents, Mitt!

Competition works. In danger of losing the GOP primary in his home state of Michigan, Mitt Romney, whose 59-point economic plan was instantly forgotten, says he will lay out more details on how he would handle taxes and spending in a speech Friday.

This better be good.

Joeas Rhode to ruin

Itas the goof heard around the world a Vice President Joe Biden went to aRoada Island, the White House announced. Hmmm, spelling a state a surely, thereas a government app for that.

That myth a carefully propagated by the speaker and her (erstwhile?) ally, Mayor Bloomberg a continues to be battered to bits, mostly by Quinn herself.

Certainly, Quinn is feeling triumphant today, after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Judith Gische ruled in favor of her lawsuit against Bloombergas new homeless-shelter policy for single adults.

Gische blocked the proposed change in eligibility standards, ruling that City Hall failed to vet the policy before the public or the City Council, as required by law.

Thatas not implausible; certainly it wouldnat be the first time the administration fumbled the fine print.

Nevertheless, that doesnat address Quinnas motives in bringing the action.

In fact, she hailed the ruling as a atremendous victorya against a policy that awould have needlessly put thousands of homeless New Yorkers on the streets.a

Which demonstrates, if nothing else, that the speaker is nostalgic for the bad old days when the city all but drafted fraudsters to live rent-free a courtesy of the taxpayers.

The new policy is simple a and eminently reasonable.

It requires single adults seeking a spot in a city homeless shelter to prove that they have no other housing options.

Thatas the same rule that applies to families a who for years could simply claim homelessness, even if they werenat, and then choose from an array of city-funded-and-furnished apartments.

As Bloomberg said yesterday: aLet the judges explain to the public why they think that you should just have a right to walk in and say, aWhether or not I need services, give it to me.aa

Add Christine Quinn to the list.

At least Gische didnat invalidate the policy itself, ruling only on the procedure the city used to implement it.

Quinn, on the other hand, is leading the charge to scrap the whole thing.

Just as she wants to scrap finger-imaging a a time-tested anti-fraud reform a for food-stamp applicants because itas astigmatizing.a (Shouldnat living off the sweat of anotheras brow be stigmatizing?)

Just as sheas encouraging the councilas General Welfare Committee to create a new bureaucracy to guide people under 25 onto the welfare rolls a thus shifting the city away from its current emphasis on bringing them into the workforce.

Homeless shelters should be a last resort a not the first available option. Thatas the only policy that makes sense even in good times a let alone when the city has to deal with an ailing fisc.

A mayor needs to make tough decisions that benefit the whole city, even if theyare unpopular with his or her political base.

Is Christine Quinn up to that challenge?

Increasingly, it appears not.