What Is This About Bloomberg?

Via Andrew Sullivan, this piece from Marc Ambinder. (I start to wonder if Sullivan reads anything but the Atlantic):

The First Read gang is all a-buzz at the Obama-Needs-A-Jew-On-The-Ticket-Angle, but I think the best way to look at an Obama-Bloomberg ticket is by noticing their complimentary traits. Obama isn't much of an administrator or a details guy by his own admission, while Bloomberg is so concerned about Your Health and Welfare that he studies intently the ins and outs of congestion pricing and trans-fats. He's a prime minister-type -- although he brings an outsider's sense of efficiency to the bureaucracy. Let Obama be the vision guy; Bloomberg could be the brass-tacks administrator.

This is all based on a rather thin "thank you" from a speech Obama gave in New York. Gee, praise for the mayor of the city in which you are speaking. How significant!

Onoe of Ambinders commenters links to this post from last December by Glenn Greenwald:

Following along in David Broder's excited footsteps, Sam Roberts in The New York Times reports that Michael Bloomberg "is growing increasingly enchanted with the idea of an independent presidential bid, and his aides are aggressively laying the groundwork for him to run." And a handful of retired, mediocre politicians with no following are issuing self-absorbed, thug-like demands, complete with deadlines.

Maybe it's just that Ambinder sees hiimself as Broder Lite.

As for the whole "post-partisan" thing: Obama all by himself is as far as we need to go on that. The rest of this is another artifact of the Village Dream Machine, and we've seen how well that all goes over with real voters. The fact that Ambinder is coming out with this kind of fantasy (and that Sullivan is jumping on the bandwagon) is to me just an indication that: 1) they are terminally embarrassed by what their party has become, to the extent that they're trying to pretend that they're not Republicans, and 2) they can't quite call themselves Democrats because they have no idea what the Democractic party represents. (Let's face it, Sullivan hasn't yet twigged to the idea that there's no difference between conservative and liberal fiscal policies except in how the money is spent. Oh, and the Democrats prefer to pay as we go.)