Perversing Course

In today's City Room Blog, Michael Barbaro muses on the NY Daily News editorial in favor of a third Bloomberg term. As he points out, this is an extreme about face-or in our view, simply a sign that true love and rationality are quite like oil and water: "In a stark reversal of its longtime stand on the issue, the editorial board of The Daily News said that the city’s term limits law should be changed to allow Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek a third term."

City Room takes us back to the good old days when the News was inveighing against the whole idea as "shameless." Quite the right word for the editors themselves, don't you think? "The News has strenuously opposed revising term limits through legislation in the past. In a 2006 editorial entitled “Council Pushes the Limits,” the newspaper called a plan by members of the Council to tweak the law “shameless.” “Just what part of “no” doesn’t the City Council understand?” The News editorial said. “Repeatedly, it has urged the voters of New York to reject term limits, and repeatedly the voters have refused. But the Council keeps trying an end run around the public. Pitiful. Shameful. Shameless.”

Indeed it is, but the shameful shoe is on another foot here-and City Room rightfully points out, as we have also commented, that the News fails to address the issue of just how the limits should be rescinded: "The News did not say exactly how term limits should be changed – through legislation in the City Council or by a public referendum. That question has become central to the debate over revising the law, since New York City voters approved the existing rules twice, in 1993 and 1996. At this point, lawmakers and legal experts say, the most logical route is through the Council."

Not logical, more like expedient, since the voters will appears to be fairly immutable on this topic. Shamelessness appears to be epidemic when it comes to the lack of concern for the people's voice.