The Citi Never Sleeps-But Apparently Mike Bloomberg Does

Mike Bloomberg's mayor culpa on the CitiTime scandal is a bit tardy, wouldn't you say? Bloomberg does have a problem with the consultants he hires and increasingly you have to wonder just why was it we re-elected the man for that added on third term. Was it economic expertise and managerial acumen? We forget.

But where would we be without the evenhandedness of the NY Daily News? The News won't let the scandal fade away and is urging swift compensatory action: "When the city embarked on a plan to computerize personnel records, the estimated cost was $63 million. That proved accurate; never mind the city eventually was billed $740 million on the CityTime contract. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara says $660 million of the money was shot through with fraud. Mayor Bloomberg is trying to recover it. Let's hope he gets it all."

Can someone give these editorialists a saliva test? Mayor Bloomberg is "trying to recover it? Perhaps, just perhaps, we can find someone else for this daunting task and not the man whose sleeping habits led to the theft in the first place?

And where is the News' vaunted outrage at stupidity and cluelessness-after all the paper gives out its fabled "Knucklehead Award" like sugarcane at Christmas. Nothing for little Mikey? This was a newspaper that gave Council member Joel Rivera the Knucklehead for suggesting that there might be a ban on fast food outlets in poorer neighborhoods.

All of which goes to show that the paper, whose publisher banded together with all of his fellow plutocrats to engineer Bloomberg's third term, is still playing on the mayor's team. In fact, while we're at it, Morticia Zuckerman should skip the middleman and retire the Knucklehead Award in his own name and honor.