One very elite group in New York City consists of eighteen people, just one of them a black American. In addition, based on bios, names, and photos, not a single member of this group is of Puerto Rican heritage. Yet the city they serve is more than half minority. So where's the liberal outrage?

Well, it turns out that the organization described above is the editorial board of the New York Times. You know, the "paper of record." These are the very same people, comfortably ensconced in their doorman buildings, who tell New York cops how to properly police the city's poor precincts, where murders are soaring.

"Stop-and-frisk" may have lowered crime and saved thousands of black lives, but New York opinion-shapers groused that the police tactic disproportionately affected black New Yorkers. Kind of like the editorial board is disproportionately pasty-hued.

What are the odds that some of these influential Times editorialists have a son or daughter, a brother or sister, walking a beat in the Bronx? How about a nephew or uncle? The expression "slim to none" comes to mind.

Meanwhile, a few miles north of Times Square, the City College of New York named its student center in honor of Assata Shakur. You may remember her as Joanne Chesimard, a convicted cop-killer who fled to Cuba. In that same spirit, a teacher in suburban New York had her students send get-well cards to Wesley Cook when he fell ill recently. Wesley Cook? That's Mumia Abu Jamal, the celebrated thug who brutally executed a cop.

There is a wide and growing disconnect between liberal America and traditional America when it comes to the men and women who serve and protect. Far too many progressives look at uniformed police officers with dismissive disdain. Although they'll quickly yell for a cop the moment someone dents their Prius or Lexus or Tesla.

There is a striking parallel when it comes to our military. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this: "With each passing decade, fewer and fewer Americans know someone with military experience in their family or social circle." Admiral Mike Mullen, once the most powerful military man in America, echoed that, saying, "America doesn't know its military and the United States military doesn't know America."

It brings to mind a pithy observation put forth by a DC pundit: "Nobody at any Washington dinner party tonight ... personally knows any enlisted man or woman now defending the nation."

The very same thing can be said of the swells in New York City, who attend dinner parties where no one actually knows a uniformed cop. One exception may be Mayor Bill de Blasio, the ultra-liberal cop-demonizer-in-chief. We hereby concede that he is probably on a first-name basis with the well-armed NYPD officers on his security detail.

This is a very disturbing trend. Too many elite, educated Americans go through life without having any personal contact with a man or woman wearing a uniform. (Doormen and airline pilots don't count!) But they are never shy about denouncing cops and soldiers.

Right now there is an anti-cop conflagration in America, stoked by liberal cable networks, irresponsible public officials, and once-great newspapers that rush to judgment.

To be fair, the critics were absolutely correct in the most recent allegation of police misconduct. Corporal David Casebolt never should have drawn his gun at that pool party in Texas, nor should he have manhandled the teenager. Everyone knows that. Casebolt himself knows that, which is why he almost immediately resigned.

Casebolt is the rare exception, but he'll be held up as the personification of all that's wrong with America's cops. Many of the folks screaming the loudest have never met a cop they liked. But that's mainly because they've never met a cop ... period! To them, cops are those beefy guys who guzzle Bud and have barbeques in Queens and Staten Island.

There is a growing disrespect for police officers in some neighborhoods, a willingness to brazenly defy and confront the cops who face tremendously difficult situations every day. TV news and editorial boards are exacerbating this ominous breakdown in the law enforcement contract.

How about if our media elites put down their brie and wine and take a moment to actually meet a few cops? Maybe even talk over a Bud and a burger. Who knows what they might discover from a real-life encounter with the people who are charged with protecting all of us from harm? Actually, they may learn a lot if they'd be willing to stop lecturing for a few minutes ... and listen.