Bloomberg View’s Kinsley’s first column should be on Bloomberg

Jack Shafer of Slate writes that new Bloomberg View columnist Michael Kinsley should write about New York mayor Michael Bloomberg for his first column for the new service.

Shafer writes, “As best as I can tell from searching Nexis and the Web, Kinsley has yet to write about Bloomberg, which means the pompous bipartisan is wildly overdue for his drubbing. My acquaintances and friends from Reason magazine have already hammered Bloomberg for his ‘petty tyranny,’ his reformist fantasies, his gun policies, and his meddlesome regulation of smoking, food, noise, and more, and in 2009, Slate‘s Jacob Weisberg knocked him for his paternalist utopianism. So Bloomberg offers Kinsley a smorgasbord of Kinsleyean topics to tear into. He’s a technocratic plutocrat who spent $108 million on getting himself elected to a third term as New York City mayor. That’s $185 for each vote he collected in the general election!

“I’m not worried that Kinsley won’t enrage Bloomberg eventually. Which boss hasn’t he offended in his career? The primary difference between Kinsley’s new boss and his earlier bosses is that all the other bosses had over the man in the street was economic power. Even so, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer couldn’t make you purchase Microsoft products, Marty Peretz couldn’t force you to support Israel, and Rick MacArthur couldn’t compel you to buy his bull. Bloomberg, on the other hand, has political power, likes to flex it, and wants even more political power. A man who wants to dictate what you eat cannot be trusted.

“All I’m proposing is that Kinsley get the awkwardness out of the way with a swift kick to Bloomberg’s twig and berries, just to remind him who’s in charge. OK, a couple of swift kicks. And maybe a hard one.”

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