Lovefest between Bloomberg, Lieberman ends over security dollars. Newsday.com: The lovefest between New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Joe Lieberman ended Monday. Like many relationships, it fell apart in a fight over money.
Just months ago, Bloomberg was one of the senator's fondest political friends as Lieberman fought to keep his seat in Connecticut despite losing the Democratic primary. Bloomberg personally campaigned for Lieberman, raised money for him and even sent political operatives to help.
What a difference a bill makes.
On Monday, Bloomberg wrote a "Dear Joe" letter _ actually, it began "Dear Chairman Lieberman" _ to spell out his frustration with homeland security legislation recently approved by the Senate committee headed by Lieberman, who is officially an independent aligned with the Democrats.
The bill, called Improving America's Security Act, aims to revise the way federal anti-terror grants are handed out to cities and states. Bloomberg came to Washington last month to testify before Lieberman's committee, urging them to give a greater share to those cities at greatest risk of attack.
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In his letter, the mayor did not remind the senator of all the campaign help the billionaire mayor gave him, but he made very clear his displeasure with Lieberman's bill.
The mayor called the bill "a major step backward," because it lumps anti-terror money in with anti-flood and anti-hurricane funds, and allocates more dollars according to population instead of risk.
New York lawmakers have long complained that a population-based approach spreads money around indiscriminately, rather than pooling it for the highest-profile, most threatened cities like New York, Washington, and Los Angeles.
Guess this will kill the rumors that Lieberman and Bloomberg might run together on a third party ticket.
And an aside: I have a friend who was a D.A. in a former life. She told me that some cops called a killing of a drug dealer by another drug dealer a "public service killing." That is, if things worked out as they hoped, the killer would be caught and put behind bars and there were two fewer drug dealers on the street. Yes, that's harsh. But I read this article and thought, does Bloomberg want me to cry because his buddy Lieberman just took a big dump on him? Because the idea that Lieberman just shat upon one of his political buddies--a man who thought it was just fine for the police to arrest peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders during the Republican National Convention--doesn't exactly bring on the tears. Except that New York City, which has to be in the top three on the al Qaeda hit list, is going to get less money under this act, and Lieberman, the Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is just fine with that. Did I mention that I live in New York City?
Link via Firedoglake.