Bloomberg's Emily Litella Moment

According to Daily Politics, Mayor Mike has now renounced his apostasy on term limits and is prepared to vote to restore them-ex post Bloomberg: "Mayor Bloomberg, who leaned hard on the City Council to change the rules so he could serve a third term, now confirms that he thinks three terms is good for him -- and only him. Asked how he would vote on the ballot question restoring the city's term limits to two terms, he said he's "voting to restore," reports our Erin Einhorn."

The mayor went on to admit that his hand picked charter revision commission messed up: "He added that what his charter commission put on the ballot "is not the bill that I wanted. It's not the bill that I think the commission should have passed. It's not the bill I think that most of the members of the commission wanted to pass, but it's better than what we have now and I committed that we would have that referendum and I personally am going to vote for it."

Bloomberg's explanation is, however, a classic example of opacity in extremis: "Asked to why he planned to vote that way, he declined to elaborate, saying his vote was "because the public, when they changed term limits, I had said it was changed legally by the City Council and that we would give the public another chance and a referendum to decide whether they wanted two or three and now they can do that. If they vote no or don't vote they'll have three if the vote yes, it'll go back to two except for elected officials sitting right now."

Translated: I got what I wanted and now the law can go back to what it was for the less exalted elected officials-or not; it really doesn't matter a whole lot to me, now that I don't have any skin in the game. Adding insult to injury we have a weekend at Bernie's moment with the disinterring of Ron Lauder on this issue-now that his master is out of the picture the moribund Lauder is, well, gonna get loud: "Lauder wouldn’t say how much his new TV spots will cost, but “it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars,” according to Allen Roth, the executive director of the Lauder-created New Yorkers for Term Limits. Lauder, an heir to the Lauder cosmetics fortune who is estimated to be personally worth about $3 billion, had spent a combined $4 million on his efforts to enact a two-term limit and uphold it. Roth said that additional funds will be pumped into the commercials “as money comes” The buy is a big one, he added, and is almost exclusively for the regular broadcast TV stations—Channels 2, 4, 7, 11 and Fox 5 (where it’s not blacked out by Cablevision)-- with some spots on cable, such as NY1. There will be no radio or print ads."

Great timing Ron-and all of the mayor's little gremlins felt that it was safe to come on and play civics once again: "On hand with Lauder, when he held his press conference this morning by the steps of City Hall, was Michael Long, the chairman of the New York State Conservative party, and Henry Stern, a former Councilman and former city parks commissioner who now runs nycivic.org."

All in all, a sad display by the Bloomberg enablers who have really forfeited any right to lecture the citizens on governance. As for Mike, it was one of those middle finger, "whatever," moments-a real question of mind over matter: he doesn't mind, and no one else matters.