Supercillious Mike?

In Friday's NY Post, the paper's Adam Brodsky advanced the idea that we should send Mike Bloomberg to Albany in order to rid the capitol of Shelly Silver and usher in an age of reform: "WITH Joe Bruno out as Senate majority leader, it's time for Mayor Bloomberg to take on Albany's last-man-standing: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Nothing would boost Hizzoner's legacy as much as a successful bid to oust the speaker, a chief cause of Albany's broken government (and a major headache for the city, too). Let's face it: If New York is to see any real reform - relief from job-killing taxes, special-interest catering, parochialism and outright corruption - Silver must go. And who better than Honest Mike to show him the door?"

Who indeed, but that great tax cutter and special interest scourge, Mike Bloomberg. Is Brodsky really serious? Aside from the fact that Mayor Mike hasn't yet exhibited the political skills necessary to actually threaten the speaker's reign, there's little in his resume that indicates he's any reformer in the Brodsky mold.

After all, isn't this the same guy who boosted NYC property taxes through the roof in 2002, after running on an anti-tax platform against Mark Green (and attacking him as a tax hiker)? And isn't this the same Bloomberg that let Deputy Dan Doctoroff run amok aggrandizing his buddy Steve Ross? There is no greater special interest in NYC than the real estate lobby, and as the mayor himself admits, they've done very well under his watch-and without the benefit of the nefarious lobbyists; indicating it seems that, under Bloomberg, you don't even need a lobbyist to advance the special interests.

So aside from the impracticality of a Bloomberg challenge to Shelly, it is hard to see how the Albany climate would improve from this exercise in dilettantism. Let the mayor return to the private sector where he can pursue paying off the poor to behave better; and do so with his own funds, not the public's.