There’s no sense looking for logic in Mayor Bloomberg’s explanation for why he won’t make an endorsement in the mayoral race. The only way to understand the irresponsible decision is to realize the mayor thinks it’s not good for his next life to take sides in this one.
Fearing that his philosophical ally, Republican Joe Lhota, can’t win, Bloomberg doesn’t want to get beaten up in the election and be tainted by a Lhota loss. So the mayor played Mr. Humble, saying he’s “never been a partisan guy” and that “my job is to govern and then to help the next guy.”
Aw, shucks. Li’l Abner just wants to do what’s right for Dogpatch.
It is especially odd to claim that New York’s interests are best served by his neutrality. His first campaign, in 2001, was successful largely because Rudy Giuliani endorsed him. Had Giuliani stayed silent, far-left Democrat Mark Green would have been mayor.
That scary thought should compel Bloomberg to man up because this race is a sequel to 2001.
Lhota is, like Giuliani and Bloomberg, a conservative on public safety, a fiscal moderate and a social libertarian.
Democrat Bill de Blasio is better on the stump and more likable than Green, but de Blasio also leans so far left he’s in danger of tipping over. His anti-police agenda would undo Bloomberg’s key legacy.
And consider de Blasio’s call for a tax hike. As the centerpiece of his vow to address inequality — a development he blames on Bloomberg — the Democrat is pushing a surcharge on incomes above $500,000. It is his Big Idea, so let’s follow the bouncing ball to see where it leads — and who benefits most.
Even as de Blasio denies he’s guilty of class warfare, he plays to the Occupy Wall Street crowd with lines such as, “If you live on Park Avenue, you got everything you need. Nannies and housekeepers.”
Last time I looked, nannies and housekeepers were working people. Does de Blasio plan to outlaw their jobs? Does he think expanding welfare will reduce inequality?
His aim is to gin up popular anger at wealth, making de Blasio’s tax plan more a political hammer than an anti-poverty policy. It might help him, but it won’t help the poor.
He says he would use the $530 million in new taxes over five years to fund pre-kindergarten classes and after-school programs. That fits with his plan to use the schools to “promote equity and social and economic justice,” as his Web site puts it.
Hello, Mark Green!
In truth, revenue from the tax hike would go mostly to members of the teachers union, a group that will endorse de Blasio any day now. The money would be on top of the $24.5 billion the city already budgets for education.
That whopping sum — an average of $24,000 per student — produces a system where only about one out of five grads is ready to succeed in college or a career. The “ready” rate for black and Latino children is a mere 13 percent, which de Blasio calls “abysmal.”
Yet despite the fact that any honest plan to help at-risk kids will require the union to yield power and perks, de Blasio parrots almost all the union positions at the heart of its war with Bloomberg. He promises to reduce high-stakes testing, cut class size and stop closing failing schools. He is decidedly cool to charter schools and says nothing about firing bad teachers.
In other words, de Blasio’s solution for inequality is to pour hundreds of millions more into a broken system, punish high earners and reward the group that is the biggest obstacle to giving poor kids a better education.
When he endorsed Bloomberg in 2001, Giuliani was dealing with the aftermath of 9/11. He, too, was concerned about the transition to a next mayor, and refused to criticize Green when he made his choice nine days before the general election.
“I wasn’t sure it was the right time to enter into any form of partisan politics,” Giuliani said then. “I have to continue to run the city. I have to continue to keep the city together.”
Giuliani found a way to balance politics and governing in those awful days, and Bloomberg has a clear duty to find one now. It’s part of the job.
Obama’s Syria Damasc-querade
Stop the criticism over President Obama’s policy on Syria. It’s unfair to criticize a policy that doesn’t actually exist.
A policy is “a definite course or method of action,” the dictionary says. Obama’s serial zig-zags, flip-flops and definite maybes don’t qualify.
His approach to Syria deserves the same patience the weather gets in Ireland. Locals say that if you don’t like it, wait 10 minutes, it will change.
While we’re waiting, we might ponder how President Hamlet’s indecision became a decision. While he was gazing at his naval for two years, the Syrian civil war metastasized into a new cold war. And the Russkies are eating our lunch.
From Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe-banging threats to Ronald Reagan’s “Tear down this wall,” the first cold war threatened mutual annihilation. We prevailed because our system was superior in every way. When the Soviet Union collapsed, we were the only remaining superpower.
We still are, but Vladimir Putin senses weakness in Obama and has put the baby in a corner. If this were boxing, the referee would stop the fight out of mercy.
All of which suggests the deal with Russia over the terms of Assad’s surrender of chemical weapons is a trick. Obama was so desperate to get out of the box he created that he effectively agreed to keep the Butcher of Damascus in power. Forget those references to Assad as Hitler or talk of a military strike — we’re partners now.
The bad guys won again. With Obama, don’t they always?
‘Snow’ and tell travesty
The case of Edward Snowden gets more outrageous. The former government security contractor, now an indicted fugitive living in Russia, is still releasing highly classified material five months after he fled the United States.
In recent days, Snowden released documents showing the cost of America’s intelligence operations and the amount controlled by the CIA. He followed that with details on data-sharing with Israel.
Our Keystone Kops reportedly still don’t know how he cracked security codes to steal material unrelated to his job, or what else he has.
What an incredible screw-up.
Mouse in the House
A story in the National Journal on vermin in the White House quotes from Jimmy Carter’s 1977 diary about the smell of dead mice.
“For two or three months now I’ve been telling them to get rid of the mice,” Carter wrote. “They still seem to be growing in numbers, and I am determined either to fire somebody or get the mice cleared out — or both.”
Alas, the story says the problems persist to this day. And these are the people who run the country!