Bloomberg terminals

An economics analyst, on NPR the other afternoon, noted that unless you have a Bloomberg Terminal -- basically computers that give you financial data, such as the now infamous "TED spread," you can't get most anywhere else -- you're in the dark about the planet's real financial situation.

Mayor Bloomberg, in case you haven't heard, feels he is personally just as indispensable to the City of New York.

Michael Weiner feels differently, and good for him.

So now Mr. Weiner is transforming his candidacy into a full-throated populist crusade against the billionaire Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal for a third term, hurling his thin frame in front a political locomotive roaring down the tracks.

In the process, Mr. Weiner said he had found his voice — and purpose — in the 2009 election for mayor: defending New York City’s ordinary, working people against the self-interested, back-room deals of its most powerful.

He has quickly become the most prominent and relentless of the mayor’s grass-roots opponents, who accuse Mr. Bloomberg and his wealthy friends in the business world of trying to circumvent the will of New York’s voters, who backed term limits twice, in 1993 and 1996.

I'm no fan of term limits. But when a politician supports them right up until the moment his term is up, and then changes his mind then I call him a hypocrite. And when he does it because he claims only he can lead the city through the current crisis -- as Giuliani tried to do in September 2001 -- then he needs to be ridden out of town on a rail.

The most amazing thing about this, and where Weiner could really gain traction, is how Bloomberg's wealthy brethren, such as Ronald Lauder (heir to the Estee Lauder fortune) -- a loud advocate of term limits -- have lined up behind their fellow Brahmin.