What a surprise. It’s been a full half day since residents of the Upper East Side of Manhattan began suspecting Mayor de Blasio was taking revenge on the rich neighborhood by withholding snowplows in the storm. Yet not a single federal prosecutor has announced a probe of the mayor or his staff. In the case of Governor Christie and the lane closings, the damning emails were barely public when subpoenas started flying like snowflakes. But then, Mr. Christie admitted his staff had abused its powers in respect of the bridge. Mr. de Blasio has chosen to blame the catastrophe of his handling of his first blizzard on — wait for it — the weather.

The bright side of all this is the early signal that Mr. de Blasio’s mayoralty will give the nation a glimpse of how progressive government really performs when the people need it. The parts of our public infrastructure that don’t report to the new mayor seemed to be performing relatively well, though, according to the report in the New York Post, there are no IRT trains on the number six line in the Bronx and the Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit retreated to a weekend schedule and the state of New Jersey decreased the speed limit on its Turnpike. Reasonable enough, it seems to us.

What a contrast, though, to New York City, where streets weren’t being plowed and Mr. de Blasio was more blasé than the Abominable Snowman. On the Upper East Side, the New York Post found one 70-year-old woman forced to resort to snowshoes. It quoted no less a figure than writer Molly Jong-Fast, daughter of Erica Jong and granddaughter of the communist bard Howard Fast, as explaining that “the Upper East Side did not vote for [de Blasio]” and he “is trying to get back at us.” Buses were idling, though they had chains, and the city’s 311 “help” line was inundated with pleas. For the failure to plow the Upper East Side, Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty blamed . . . the traffic.

Well, we’ll see what turns up as the newspapers and the City Council dig into this blizzard. On second thought, forget the City Council. Can anyone imagine Speaker Mark-Viverito digging into the job performance of the mayor who did so much to hand her the speakership? It did so when Mayor Bloomberg defaulted in the snow. Mr. de Blasio gained the mayoralty by running against the Bloomberg record, of which we, too, were among the critics. At the moment, though, it looks like Mayor Bloomberg could run the city better from Bermuda than Mr. de Blasio can from Gracie Mansion.