It looks like someone blinked. An internal memo obtained by the Daily News shows union leader Patrick Lynch has backed off his demand that Mayor de Blasio apologize for remarks he says show a lack of support for police. Lynch, who heads the 23,000-member Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, issued the memo Friday in the interest of “setting the record straight.” And he says that things over at City Hall are improving since he has kept a fire under de Blasio’s feet. “Despite statements to the contrary, our demands have never been for a simple apology, but for clear and unequivocal expressions of support for our members and an equally strong condemnation of those who have stirred up hatred and violence towards police officers,” he wrote.

Whatever, Mr. Lynch. I guess we should have seen this coming. There have been reports of PBA members tearing Lynch a new one over his apology demand and just days ago we saw that Quinnipiac poll show Lynch with a rather Dick Cheney-esque 18% approval rating . Only 850 of the PBA’s 23,000 members signed Lynch’s stupid “stay away from my funeral, Mr. de Blasio” petition

The final straw really seems to have been the horribly ill-advised move of having uniformed NYPD officers disregard the wishes of the families of those two murdered cops and turn their backs on the mayor. That went over like a lead brick and really seemed to swing public opinion against the PBA in general and Lynch in particular.

It seems Lynch and a coterie of halfwits in his inner circle forgot that de Blasio, who ran for mayor on a platform that quite prominently featured promises to reform the way the NYPD does business, won with well over 70% of the vote. This whole stupid showdown has been a disaster for the PBA and it was such a dumb unforced error. The cops are still working without a contract, which is ridiculous. They should have one. They should have a good one. Strategic screwups like this aren’t helping rank and file PBA members.

And don’t think that de Blasio comes out of this unscathed though. His decision last week to announce that we would veto any bill from the City Council making the type of chokehold that killed Eric Garner illegal was as dumb as anything Lynch has done. It was exactly the type of move that has exasperated so many Obama supporters over the years, one that won’t appease de Blasio’s critics while disheartening his supporters.

His explanation for this decision was even worse.

I want to respect our men and women in uniform who may be put into a life and death situation literally one-on-one—them and a perpetrator who could literally mean to kill them, and they have to defend themselves and that might involve a chokehold. And so I don’t think it should be made a matter of a legal prohibition. It should be handled by department policy.

Those chokeholds have been prohibited by NYPD policy for 20 years…and Eric Garner is still dead, Mr. Mayor.

Anyway, it appears that the war between Pat Lynch and Bill de Blasio is finally beginning to wind down. It was dumb. It was dangerous. It diminished everyone involved.

And it never needed to happen.

Originally posted at The Albany Project.

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(image via Jason Kuffer’s flickr)