Michael Bloomberg Should Not Be Playing Scott Walker To Occupy Wall Street Demonstrators

October 8, 2011 by The Political E...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's statement that was self-destructive, ignorant and demagogic.

Does he want to argue that Wall Street is where the job-creators hang out? Only if you think their bonuses and golden parachute payments trickle down, and then - - where are the jobs?

Like a misguided dictator, Bloomberg is giving the demonstrators momentum with thoughtless moves and words, just as the movement goes national. Is that his goal?

We saw this in Wisconsin, too.

When his fraudulently named "Budget Repair Bill" was unmasked for the union-stripping measure it really was, and demonstrations broke out in Madison, Gov. Walker mischaracterized the demonstrators as mostly out-of-staters - - a statement rated "false" by PolitiFact.

But...unlike Bloomberg, at least Walker didn't have law enforcement pepper-spray and arrest non-violent people by the hundreds, as has Bloomberg's NYPD.

Though Walker did tell Ian Murphy, the fake David Koch in the now-infamous prank, recorded phone call, that he considered sending provocateurs into the crowd of protesters, but demurred, for political reasons:

Murphy: Right, right. We'll back you any way we can. But what we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.

Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that — because we thought about that. The problem with — my only gut reaction to that would be, right now the lawmakers I've talked to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this. The teacher's union did some polling and focus groups I think and found out that the public turned on them the minute they closed school down on them for a couple of days. The guys we've got left are largely from out of state and I keep dismissing it in all my press comments, saying ehh, they're mostly from out of state. My only fear would be if there's a ruckus caused is that would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor has to settle to avoid all these problems. You know, whereas I've said, hey, we can handle this, people can protest, this is Madison, you know, full of the '60s liberals. Let 'em protest. It's not going to affect us. And as long as we go back to our homes and the majority of people are telling us we're doing the right thing, let 'em protest all they want. So that's my gut reaction. I think it's actually good if they're constant, they're noisy, but they're quiet, nothing happens. Sooner or later the media stops finding them interesting.

So Bloomberg is out-Walkering Walker.

Few have tried, because who among logically-thinking politicians would?