the wages of sin: your wages, their sin

Now that our great and glorious leader Michael Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn Quisling have succeeded in their power play, here’s a little question to consider this fine fall weekend: at what cost?

I am not asking about the political cost, which is, in many ways, immeasurable—at least as yet—I am talking about the real cost in New York City tax dollars that have already gone or will have to go quite literally to pay homage to our new born king. For along with the millions upon millions that have already been spent out of the mayor’s publicly financed slush fund to buy the votes he needed on the City Council (an impeachable offense, as best I can tell), NYC will now have to spend more taxpayer dollars to defend itself against the lawsuits that naturally had to arise from this extralegal end run around the city charter (two have already been filed, with the promise of more on the way).

It will certainly be in the millions of dollars—how many millions, I can’t say. I doubt anyone in the city government would dare give an estimate.

But, millions and millions of city dollars have been spent, and millions and millions of city dollars will be spent. . . all so that we can keep Mike Bloomberg and his supposedly irreplaceable expertise in place to guide the city through the dire fiscal crisis to come.

* * *

By the way, Mike and Chris caught the eye and ire of the national media on Thursday, making Keith Olbermann’s list of Worst Persons in the World.





(cross-posted on capitoilette, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

Olbermann puts the blame on Mame

On last night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC host delivered one of his patented “Special Comments,” this time raking Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin over the coals for yet again cheapening the quality of debate in the presidential race, this time by accusing Senator Barack Obama of “pallin’ around with terrorists.”





While I don't disagree by-and-large with the substance of the segment, Olbermann failed to do what I think is most important when attacking Palin.

Palin is, to my eye, a horrible person, certainly unqualified, overtly corrupt, viciously ambitious—a joke, really (and a bad one)—but at the end of the day, no one votes for the Veep. The biggest problem with Palin is that John McCain picked her. McCain showed in this, like in so much else, his complete lack of sound judgment, his fascination with the maverick-ie gamble to buttress his bogus brand, and his track record of putting his own ambition above any other consideration.

Any attack on Palin has to remind voters that she was put in this position by a cynical candidate McCain. Keith came close to that point when he explained that he forgives Palin—because she is in a situation “beyond her ability to cope”—but he needed to make it explicit: You can't forgive Palin without blaming McCain.

. . .

As for the title, I think I’ll let Rita explain: