TWD's The Real Column: A King's Failure To Be A Leader Once More

It was disgraceful and embarrassing when Mike Bloomberg decided that President Obama wasn't worth having to see the biggest damage the three islands of New York has ever witnessed, especially when Chris Christie of all people knew that he himself required the services of the most powerful person in the nation.

But the disrespectful decision has become probably fitting, because Obama should not have to be witness to a mayoral job so shameful, the Atlantic needs to hide itself in humiliation for ever placing Bloomberg on any of its magazine covers.

Because King Michael Bloomberg, mayor of the five boroughs that amalgamate to form New York City, has failed New York City again.

King Michael Bloomberg did not prepare for this severity of this storm, and his snarky, petty, contentious, easily annoyed, wealthy, powerful man schtick further shows how he is more of a true coward who doesn't walk to walk.

King Micahel Bloomberg didn't heed the warnings of last August's Hurricane Irene and never prepared at all for this storm until the very last minute.  Evacuated zones were issued late on the outskirts of lower Manhattan, Queens and, the various outskirts of Brooklyn. Even worse however were the fact that areas should have been evacuated zones were idiotically not labeled as such.

One of many families in the Gerritsen Beach section here in Brooklyn represented how awful the job King Micheal Bloomberg has done here. They were told that their area was safe from those in City Hall, only to see what they have now.

 

Do you see the anger and pain in that family's eyes, voices, and words? "Nobody cares about us." The narrative gets worse, it sounds like it's New Orleans after Katrina in August 2005 all over again.

The aftermath of inadequate, terrible preparation for this storm has people holding others at gunpoint at a gas station in Queens after the man holding the gun had the audacity to cut the long car lines resulting from this storm. You have long bus lines after bus lines created in many places, especially here in downtown Brooklyn, because of the old infrastructures of the subway systems in lower Manhattan finally causing the city havoc like it always potentially could have. The MTA could sure use money from the wealthy, but nope, tax cuts have to be made secure for them here to as well.

Going largely underreported is the looting transpiring in Suffolk and Nassau County in Long Island, stuff going down in Staten Island, and elsewhere in general.

Yet, you have King Michael Bloomberg still thinking it's such a good idea to have his and his fellow elite's million dollar marathon go right on with no problem, because God Bless the wealthy elites of this city if their precious marathon would not transpire. Hell, imagine how they would feel if Sandy came three weeks later and their precious Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade was harmed? Full steam ahead with the floats and Matt Lauer overtalking for sure.

The marathon will "bring the city" together, says powerful New York Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg. Yes, it will bring the wonderful wealthy elite of Manhattan like Ms. Wittenberg together once more to celebrate how they want all four other boroughs to be operated and run only in their way.

The presidents of these boroughs not named Manhattan say that the marathon should not go on, yet King Mike Bloomberg says the money is too precious, the 47, 500 runners and the business it generates is just too much to resist. Like King Michael Bloomberg now suddenly cares about the working class vendors after he has never given one iota of a real thought about them before.

It really was a little alarming in the Saturday build up to the storm how the people on the outskirts were still casual with their lack of urgency or refusal to leave the danger zones. But you can understand why the treated the storm as not something that could cost them their lives (though inexcusable of course unless they wanted to lose their lives on purpose).

Besides the obvious reasons of New York's three islands/five boroughs never having a storm like this along with how minimal damage Irene did on the new York area (though Connecticut received a lot of damage), that cavalier nature of how New Yorkers viewed Sandy before Sandy came was going to happen.

But that's where a real leader and a real mayor for, not just the elite in Manhattan, portions of Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, but for the entire five boroughs and three islands that consist of the New York metropolitan area. And you have to be a leader not in times of adversity for cheap photo ops and lovely optics that are perfect for national political ambitions, but for all times.

A mayor to stand up to the deregulation of ConEdison under the Giuliani (and Pataki) administration that lead to a lack of rules resulting in what we have now, power all out over the area. It certainly is fitting that lower Manhattan, one of the most affluent areas in the world and certainly in this city, is still without power in its fourth day after the storm. A mayor to stand up to MTA raising the fares on middle class people instead of getting taxes from wealthy people who love going to Tony Award show or sit on the front seats of Madison Square Garden or Yankees Stadium without a true care for the middle class.

Instead, we have a mayor that loves Wall Street, adores charter schools, hates the teachers, and probably isn't all that warm with black and brown people since he cherishes his stop-and-frisk racist problem so much.

It sure was fitting that the communities and areas long considered unbearable, the (once and still for some) violent ghettos of the city in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn, Brownsville, Brooklyn, Jamaica, Queens, South Bronx, and many others were the safest places in the city for this storm.

It probably is fitting that Bloomberg just hates Obama so much on the insider (and carefully crafted an "endorsement" of him yesterday that called his tenure disappointing at the same time yesterday) denied Obama access to the area, something Giuliani gladly did for Bush of course for 9/11.

King Michael Bloomberg did not learn the lessons from the Snowmageddon on the day after Christmas here in 2010, and he did not heed the warnings of Hurricane Irene 14 months ago. It's only fitting that he and the elite of this city have been abased once again in the most dramatic and tragic of fashions out in Staten Island, parts of Long Island, Queens, Manhattan, and in Brooklyn.

And it's probably fitting that King Mike Bloomberg was too embarrassed to reveal to the President of the United States the awful job he did face-to-face, man-to-man. And how he still is embarrassed to think he has a realistic shot of being president in 2016 after the job he has done here.

It's more embarrassing than his attempts at speaking world class Spangelish.