Buying Support

The NY Post-and why not Morticia?-has finally realized that Mike Bloomberg has been buying political support with hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money: "Mayor Mike may have just opened himself up to a world of hurt. The New York Times reports that Hizzoner is putting on ice a program through which he's "anonymously" channeled money for hundreds of city not-for-profit do-good groups. So what's the problem? Let's just say that the cash -- nearly $200 million in total -- has bought Mike a whole lot of political peace and quiet over the past eight years. Sure, the funds, dispensed through the Carnegie Corporation of New York, officially came from an unnamed donor. But everyone and his mother knows whose money it is."

And money for nothing it's not: "And it doesn't take a genius to understand what a big fat check every year from the mayor might do to a group's tactical calculations. The not-for-profit crowd, after all, is usually expert at staging those big productions on City Hall steps accusing the city -- and its big-meanie mayor -- of starving this worthy cause or that of needed funds."

But, of course, it's not only complicit silence that Bloomberg has bought-and the Post shouldn't have stopped at this point. Because when congestion taxing was being discussed, Bloomberg's paid minions were out in force with green tee shirts signifying there purchased status. And let's not forget the phony Learn New York group-funded by Mike's pals Bill Gates and Eli Brand in a patrician quid pro quo-that lobbied successfully for mayoral control, and is now being disbanded because NY has been well schooled by its effort.

So Mike's millions have been hard at work for the past eight years-on behalf of the only special interest that counts for the solipsistic Bloomberg-himself. And if anyone deserves the Daily News' knucklehead Award-aside from the paper's supine publisher himself-it is the people of New York who have meekly ceded their sovereignty to the little man with his own personal political ATM machine.