Blog post of the year

From Pajamas Media:

In his seven years as mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg has been the recipient of an almost uninterrupted spate of good publicity.

It’s about all his legacy will amount to, and it is not an accident. His entire political career has been designed, down to the carefully released rumors about his presidential ambition, as an experiment in governance through public relations. Barack Obama loves him, John McCain loves him, Time magazine loves him, 70% of New Yorkers loves him, and yet if I stopped writing right here to ask what, exactly, Bloomberg has ever accomplished, not many people could come up with an intelligible answer.

They might mutter something vague about “education reform” without being able to explain its manic-depressive vicissitudes, or cite any concrete evidence of its success. Crime? That’s been down since the days of Giuliani, and anyone might have been able to maintain an already successful law enforcement program.

Behind the po-faced façade of a competent but bland CEO of America’s toughest metropolis lurks a breathtakingly calculated mediocrity, a man who silences his critics with cash and is then the first to tell you just how popular he is.

Bloomberg’s reputation among the fast-vanishing middle class of New York — as an economic demographic, it accounts for a mere 20% of the city’s total population — is that of an oblivious fat cat who has turned the island of Manhattan into an overpriced playground for all his rich friends.

More from the NY Times' Clyde Haberman:

Mr. Bloomberg has minions of his own. They have floated more trial balloons than the Macy’s parade in various attempts to stave off lame-duckdom. This third-term business may be just another way to keep his name front and center as his days at City Hall wind down.

But it just could be that Mr. Bloomberg, like Mr. Giuliani, has never fully absorbed Charles de Gaulle’s admonition about indispensable men. The graveyards, de Gaulle said, are full of them.