Out at Third

The Mike Bloomberg third term boomlet apparently doesn't extend past a certain townhouse on 79th Street. As Michael Goodwin writes yesterday: "To seek that third term, Bloomberg would first have to find a way around the two-term limit voters approved twice. And he'll have a lot of explaining to do about flip-flopping on a law he has supported since he entered public life."

What we're hoping for is that Mayor Mike continues this little play act long enough so that others, besides Goodwin, really start to evaluate this mayor's tenure. There's nothing like a little dose of hypocrisy to get the press juices flowing. As Goodwin points out: "The sad thing is that Bloomberg, in his frequent support of term limits, made the most compelling arguments about why they are good for the public. To wit, nobody is indispensable, incumbents have too much of an advantage and new eyes bring new ideas."

The more folks look, the less indispensable Bloomberg will appear. Here's Mike in his own words: "The little you lose in experience you more than make up in terms of fresh ideas. I don't know of any company that would allow their people to stay doing the same thing for long periods of time."

The whole Bloomberg act is getting tiring in the extreme. Not only do we need fresh ideas, we need actual ideas-the mayor brought nothing new to the task seven years ago, and what we really need is someone who will tackle the necessary job of streamlining government, making it both less unwieldy and more effecient (DOB anyone?). And lowering the city's tax burden would be a corrolary of this effort; an idea that Bloomberg the taxer always saw as foreign.