I haven't mentioned it in this space in few weeks, but I'm now
writing every Friday for Brainwash. In today's column I note the widespread
and persistent assumption that Michael Bloomberg has to be lying
when he says he won't run for president.
I notice that Jonah Goldberg, writing on Bloomberg's troubling
utopianism, mentions this phenomenon but says it isn't a big
deal: "Such lies serve as useful political fictions allowing
politicians to test the waters." I dunno; it seems to me that with
his pledge to finish his term as mayor, Bloomberg's gone beyond the
usual "I'm focused on the present" deflections.