Bloomberg View has a weak start

Jack Shafer of Slate is not impressed with Bloomberg View, the opinion operation launched this week by Bloomberg News.

Shafer writes, “The columnists’ extreme reasonableness and to a lesser degree the low temper of the first four editorials tell you everything you need to know about why there is no Bipartisan Party or why nobody ever named their newspaper the Daily Bipartisan. As journalistic fire starter, bipartisanship or reasonableness or post-partisanship or whatever Bloomberg would call his guiding philosophy has to rate with ice water. The USA Today editorial page and op-ed section is reasonable. Who reads it? Send me the readers who crave columns and editorials written at a whisper, and I will horsewhip them back into their senses.

“Reasonableness exists primarily to marginalize the views of others, making it as much a social posture as a political position. The label of most reasonable usually is awarded to the person who is the most unreasonable in his pursuit of the title. As mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg has used the aura of reasonableness to intrude into the lives of the city’s residents in dozens of petty ways.

“Although you could argue that Bloomberg’s ‘reasonableness’ has been key to his political success, no assessment of his ballot totals is complete without mentioning that he has essentially bought his way to prominence: He spent $108 million on winning his third term as mayor, which is $185 for each vote he got in the general election. Some would say that allowing a rich guy to spend millions of his own money on political office is unreasonable, but don’t expect that position to get an airing in a Bloomberg View editorial.”

Read more here.