poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king...

apparently, bloomberg is going to try to overturn the nyc term limits law prohibiting him from running for a third term.

this is highly diced.

dont get me wrong - im not a big fan of term limits, save for the case of the presidency, a job whose unparalleled demands of its officeholder must yield diminishing returns after eight years, and whose intense concentration of power in one person begs for an automatic oversight that can only be achieved through turnover (god am i laconic).

generally, i think term limits only serve to deprive a constituency of a good leader.

but a good leader wouldnt try to strike down term limits right at the end of his own final term.

for one thing, it just doesnt pass the smell test.  actually, it fairly reeks.

but if i must proffer actual reasoning behind this argument, id say this; we have a very deliberative form of goverment (duh). this is good, b.c it means that laws - and institutions - arent changed according to the caprices of individuals. bloomberg doing this while hes mayor, as opposed to championing such legislation from the sidelines over the next four years while someone else is running city hall, totally flouts this fundamental principle.

bloomy's ostensible justification is that we need someone of his business acumen to steer us through this financial crisis. this claim only serves to underline what im talking about, and to undermine the very office he wants to maintain.

we, as new yorkers, should be able to have faith that the city government, irrespective of the individuals who comprise it at any given time, can weather any crisis. bloomberg claiming that he is uniquely qualified to handle this or any epidemic inherently compromises the agency of the next person to become mayor. 

bottom line: officeholders come and go, but the government is eternal. it shouldnt - and doesnt - need one man to prop it up.

not at any time.

btw, the clown prince of darkness himself, giuliani, tried to extend his term by three months after 9.11, using the same line of reasoning.  need i say more?