Mayoral Port-a-Potty

Can it be that Mike Bloomberg has finally got in touch with his inner Rudy? After almost eight years of catatonia, the mayor seems to have discovered that Ground Zero hasn't been developed-and he's made as hell: "Mayor Bloomberg launched a blistering attack against the Port Authority's bungling at Ground Zero yesterday, saying the agency has "an obligation to the nation" to rebuild the site on time and calling repeated delays "intolerable."

Talk about your Michael-come-lately. What exactly has the mayor been doing on this for eight years? Oh, yeah, we forgot-planning for the Olympics, and his magnum opus, a football stadium on the Far West Side. Okay, so he was a bit distracted; but it could certainly happen to anyone with big plans and a limited ability, we guess, to multi-task.

But let's give some of the discredit where discredit is due-right at the feet of Deputy Dan Docotroff who came into public service with the Olympic idée fixe; and had no interest in what Bloomberg now calls, "an obligation to the nation." Only now?

So the redevelopment of Ground Zero now becomes an additional rationale for the re-election of Mike; because, after all, who else has the requisite expertise and ability to do what the incumbent obviously was ill-equipped to accomplish. Which brings us to Mr. Silverstein.

Bloomberg has nary a discouraging word for Larry Loot-nor any aggressive intentions toward a developer who hadn't even taken his Trade Tower coat off before the planes hit. Too bad Nick Sprayregen hadn't bought the trade center. If he had, Bloomberg would have dove right in and began the public condemnation process; but then again Nick, unlike Larry, has never been part of the mayor's minyon.

All of which underscores just how the use of public condemnation is never used against those with great wealth-the clearest demonstration of the theory of non-decision making that we have ever seen. If the Port and Silverstein have mucked this national civic monument thing up to a fare thee well, we can think of no more righteous use of the right of eminent domain than to remove the sacred ground from the clutches of the fumbling Port Authority and the avaricious Silverstein.