The Worm Certainly Has Turned

Not only the New York Times, but the New York Post has turned against the former media darling Mayor Bloomberg. In a startling cover story today, the Post's Frederic U. Dicker reports that Gov. David Paterson broadly criticized the Mayor in private as "a nasty, untrustworthy, tan trum-prone liar who 'has little use' for average New Yorkers - like the 1,500 workers who would have lost their jobs had OTB closed.

Paterson has quickly turned into Bloomberg's worst nightmare, opposing Mike on matters such as the fate of Penn Station. Unlike Spitzer—a hotheaded rich guy, just like our Mayor—Paterson sees Bloomberg for what he is. If this renewed vigilance on the press' part keeps up, perhaps we can save the state from a Bloomberg governorship or save the country from a Bloomberg Vice-Presidency.

Here are some hightlights:

"His presidential thing didn't work out, term limits is looming to force him out, he's waiting and waiting to be asked to be vice president, congestion pricing didn't happen, he lost teacher tenure, the Jets stadium, and OTB isn't going the way he wants it." ...

"It's obvious that Bloomberg has little use for the kind of people who come from Queens and Staten Island, so how is he going to approach the people of Oswego and Lewis counties and Buffalo?" he asked.

"The people of New York City may be OK with the mayor taking off and flying to his private home in Bermuda every weekend, but if he did that at the state level, I think the people would send him a different message." ...

He told friends he believes Bloomberg, a billionaire, isn't getting honest advice from his staff "because they're all afraid of him and his wealth."

And he said council members have repeatedly refused to stand up to the mayor because "he's bought most of them off."

Unsurprisingly, Paterson has told reporters he didn't say those thing. Unsurprisingly, he's not going to ask for a retraction, for very convoluted reasons that I don't quite understand.