Mike Bloomberg: Mayor for Life

Mike Bloomberg: Mayor for Life

Les Payne

October 6, 2008

Papa Doc Bloomberg, Mayor for Life.

To hell with this being a nation governed by laws and not men. Shred the City Charter. Scrap the voters' referendum. Ignore the will of the people. Forget even the mayor's own past refusal to extend his reign. The Great Man has placed himself above the law with his billions to back it up.

"I've been convinced that three terms is right," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg Thursday, in announcing that he and the City Council are crafting a bill that would override the two-term limit twice approved by New York City voters. It is codified in law. Trusting the rubber stamp of the council - whose members also stand to benefit - the mayor plans to override that policy.

"In tough times," he said, "it is probably good to have more choices, because the decisions you make are more important than ever before." With the economic crisis, Bloomberg will not go quietly away, as the law requires, "from a city I feel I can help lead."

Tyranny creeps in on precisely such cat feet. Not surprisingly, Rudolph Giuliani tried it. We've seen it not just in Haiti under dictator Papa Doc Duvalier but elsewhere around the world. The voters - not the governors - must be allowed to change this key aspect of how they would be governed.

Before 2000, Democrat Bloomberg switched to Republican to replace term-limited Giuliani. The GOP was driving term limits back then as the out party looking to get in. It was just the crowbar to wedge out entrenched Democrats. The mayor of Peekskill, for example, one George Pataki, ran successfully against Gov. Mario Cuomo on the argument that three terms was simply too much, notwithstanding experience.

Switching once again, this time to independent, Bloom- berg was said to have been considering running this year for U.S. president - had Hillary Rodham Clinton gotten the nomination. Conventional wisdom had it that her high negatives rendered her unelectable. With that national door slammed shut by Clinton's defeat, Bloomberg was left to ponder his political future.

Slugging it out with the likes of Rudolph Giuliani for the privilege of spending winters in Albany as governor could not have been altogether inviting. (Giuliani approves Bloomberg's trashing of term limits; who would expect otherwise of this authoritarian, gubernatorial aspirant?)

Along comes the Wall Street meltdown and - Bingo! - a rationale for the billionaire to stay in his private East Side mansion. After all, who better to protect the city from the excesses of such greedy wheeler-dealers than a former equity broker once fired from Salomon Brothers?

Ironically, his predecessor had a similar epiphany when the terrorists flew those hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers. Who better to protect the city from Osama bin Laden, Giuliani convinced himself. Bloomberg the mayor-elect was having none of that. [CORRECTION: Michael Bloomberg was a candidate for mayor of New York City when former Mayor Rudy Giuliani explored overriding term limits. In his column Monday, Les Payne incorrectly referred to Bloomberg as the mayor-elect. Pg. A37 10/07/08]

Holding to his term-limits guns, he vetoed a '02 City Council bill that would have extended them. The proposal, the mayor said, smelled of personal gain.

The stench does not deter Bloomberg these days from going over the head of the voters to re-enlist himself as a candidate, essentially by fiat. Among all the 4 million-odd eligible New Yorkers, including a half dozen with actual plans to run, Bloomberg declares himself best suited to steer the city through its economic crisis. He didn't, of course, see the calamity coming, but, hey, what's to be expected from a mayor you pay only $1 a year.

Swaddling his naked power grab in the Pampers of public interest, Bloomberg once again uses high-minded words to commit a low-minded act.

 Newsday Inc.