WASHINGTON — Apparently New York City’s Mayor Michael R.
Bloomberg whiles away his last hours in the mayor’s palace
daydreaming. He has been mayor for almost three terms and though
his mayorship may not have been as heroic or even as effective as
that of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, it has at least kept the city up to
Mayor Giuliani’s standards of cleanliness, law and order, and an
approximation of sense of financial rectitude. So if Mr. Bloomberg
is no Rudy Giuliani, at least he has done okay up until now.
Now his daydreams are taking on the air of delusion. He
apparently longs for the perfect gesture with which to festoon his
legacy. Health for all! An end to guns for everyone, except the
cops! No more violence! Maybe he even plans a campaign against
spitting in public. If that last daydream plays well with the
public relations team he has hired to ensure his fame for the
ages, he will probably call a press conference and
admonish us all to avoid public spitting. Possibly the citizenry
will be advised to carry little cups or doggy bags. The mayor and
his team think of everything.
Mr. Bloomberg is intent on leaving a memorable legacy. He has
rumbled on against the Second Amendment, against “trans-fat,”
against salt and sugar consumption, against obesity, and—for
years—against tobacco, even pipes, even cigars, even the tobacco
that one chews. He has taken extraordinary action against this
substance, causing tobacco to be more expensive in New York City
than anywhere else in America, banning it from public places such
as restaurants, parks, even beaches, leaving cigarette smokers to
languish on chill streets like the homeless only more reviled. Mr.
Bloomberg tried to ban sugary drinks from being served in
containers larger than sixteen ounces, but a state judge who had
apparently been a recent reader of the United States Constitution
said that bill went too far. Possibly the judge was a
co-conspirator with the Tea Party movement. I know that might
strike you as improbable, but I am told that at least in rural New
York there are still judges conversant with the Constitution.
All this concern of the mayor for his legacy is, as I have
implied, in pursuit of a delusion. Only an occasional
professor of urban politics gives a rat’s hind leg for Mr.
Bloomberg’s legacy. Do you remember Mayor John Lindsay’s legacy or
Mayor David Dinkins’ legacy—other than during their terms the
subway system was a no-man’s land, the sidewalks were dirty and
dominated by muggers, and the city was headed toward bankruptcy. By
some accounting theories it already was bankrupt. Mayor Edward Koch
left a legacy, but it was not much. Possibly a few wry wisecracks
were attributed to him, possibly an urbane witticism. That is about
it.
I recall, prior to Mayor Giuliani, a common theme of
conversation when I was in the city was that New York was dying.
Then along came Rudy. He worked very hard, applying fundamental
principles of governance to a city that thought it had progressed
beyond them. The city miraculously revived. It became one of the
most civilized cities in the world once again. So much for the
decline of New York City, or for that matter the decline of
civilization. New York bounced back, and for those who say America
is in hopeless decline under President Barack Obama I say wait
until 2016 or actually 2014. All is not lost.
As for Mayor Bloomberg, he ought to knock it off. This claptrap
about his legacy is a fool’s errand. His latest effort to ban the
public display of tobacco products will be found unconstitutional
as surely as his earlier efforts to ban the large containers of
disgusting soft drinks.
Mayor Bloomberg, we live in a free society. There
are citizens out there that believe in it even though they side
with you about the value of non-violence and good health. Yet they
believe in personal freedom above all else. You would not want to
be remembered as the mayor who tried to become a despot… and thanks
to the Constitution failed.
Photo: UPI
