Nurse Bloomberg.
Posted on 05/16/2007 5:29:56 AM PDT by tcostell
I've met Mike Bloomberg a few times at business functions, and to be frank, I personally didn't care for the man. He struck me as, perfectly in keeping with his image, one of the most self consumed and arrogant men alive. In the finance business in New York City, many people who deal with his company joke that their corporate logo should be the raised middle finger, because that's what passes for customer service there. Well it's clear that the attitude of his company flows down from the top.
After a lifetime as a liberal Democrat, he was elected as the Republican Mayor of New York using his own money, which relieved him of that detail of political life that politicians have always found so troublesome, their accountability to the electorate. Mike is free to do as he likes, because he's beholden to no one. No special interest has a grip on him, no party machine can influence him. And before that idea starts to sound appealing, you should remember that when we remove the influence of groups, all we are left with is the character of the man, and it's far more likely that one man alone will be wrong about a particular issue than all men will be wrong about it in unison.
Mike Bloomberg has had two key specialties as Mayor of New York City. The first has been his well publicized tendency to use government to intrude into the day to day lives of ordinary people "for their own good". For instance, "Nurse Bloomberg" as he's now known in many circles, has determined that new Yorkers are too stupid to manage their own diet, and has subsequently used his authority to ban the use of "trans fats" in preparing fried foods. To date this has produced no appreciable change in the lives of New Yorkers, a few bags of soggy French fries notwithstanding, but it has made Mike feel like he's "made a difference".
Personally, it's just made me feel like he thinks I'm an imbecile.
Second, while New York is the country's largest city, he apparently still thinks it's too small for him. So he's made every attempt to exert his authority extra-jurisdictionally on his most treasured social issue, the registration, licensing, and accounting of every firearm sold anywhere in the country. You see, New York City has very strict gun control laws. They were originally enacted to keep guns away from those feckless Irish immigrants less they begin to demand things of their government that their government was uninterested in delivering. And while those laws have very effectively eliminated guns from the hands of virtually all law abiding New Yorkers, the criminal population of New York still seems to be as well armed as ever. So Mike is doing his level best to extend the gun control laws of New York city, to the rest of the country in order to choke off the supply to his criminal population.
Toward that end, he has dispatched private investigators to Virginia, in alleged violation of federal law, in an attempt to prove that straw purchases are commonplace among the uncivilized rubes beyond his "Hadrian's wall" the Hudson river. He's lobbied mayors across the country to try to get them to forget about the interests of their own constituencies and do what he feels is right for New York. He's invested millions of his own money in reality distorting ad campaigns in mid western states designed to sway others into his "guns by government permission only" ideology. And he's gotten some reactions.
For starters, three states have proposed (and one has enacted) legislation banning the use of the BATF database for civil suits, the inevitable goal of his straw purchase efforts. Also, a television station in Kansas has, on review of his ads, refused to run them because they found they were too distorting of the actual issue. Apparently most American's aren't as comfortable being ruled from above as New Yorkers are. But all the heresy among the unwashed isn't going to slow down Mike Bloomberg.
He has recently announced his intention to spend up to a billion dollars of his own money to run as a third party candidate for President in 2008. And as a social conservative, and a second amendment advocate, I intend to enthusiastically support his effort. Mike Bloomberg will come in on the left of every Democrat in the race with regard to social issues, and will split the opposition into the delusional anti-war democrats, and the delusional domestic policy democrats. And since he'll be using his own cash, he won't be backed off by threats from the Clinton political machine or from the pleading of congressional leaders desperate to seem unified about anything. Mike you see, doesn't just think he knows better than people on the right, he thinks he knows better than everyone. And while he'll probably be annoyed that the Democrats won't just fall into line behind him, he certainly won't let it stop him.
When times begin to look tough for the political left, they have always fallen back on their most reliable tool, promising cake and circuses to the unwashed in exchange for votes. They have a long ignoble history of telling people whatever they feel they must to get elected and then wriggling off the hook later by talking about the definition of "is". And I can't wait to see the political left try to deal with someone who is ostensibly on their side, with utterly no interest in seeming like he's a populist.
Mike Bloomberg is a lifetime leftists who doesn't care a whit what we little people think... and that is why I would like to endorse his candidacy for president.
Nurse Bloomberg.
Very generous, thanks.
Articles full of I’s are unbearable to me. It’s a much worse offense than spelling mistakes and grammar errors.
Come over here. This is a good read. It’s well written and amusing.
Interesting point but alas, his 3rd party campaign might encourage one from the right.
Personally I don't see it. I think you need the arrogance of a Bloomberg to even bother at all, and I don't think there is anyone on the right who will do it. Usually it's an issues based person like Perot was, who is interested in forcing a topic into the debate. Giuliani is probably arrogant enough, but he doesn't hold beliefs firmly enough to be willing to take a loss for them, and I'm sure that's how he see's a 3rd part run.
Double dog... Huh?
McLame or possibly Hagel (who apparently has the same delusions as Bloomie)
I love your tagline. That’s my favorite book. I have to warn people I give or lend it to that they (being sensitive souls) have to ignore the phoenix aspect of it. But I think everyone can learn something on every page.
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