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So, it turns out that, like most liberals, Michael Bloomberg is a flaming hypocrite. Just about everything liberals tell us that we “have” to do, they aren’t willing to do themselves. (This is especially true, by the way, of the global warming alarmists.) With Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, it’s eat as I say, not as I eat.
HE dumps salt on almost everything, even saltine crackers. He devours burnt bacon and peanut butter sandwiches. He has a weakness for hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and fried chicken, washing them down with a glass of merlot.
And his snack of choice? Cheez-Its.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has become New York City’s nutritional nag, banning the use of trans fats, forcing chain restaurants to post calorie counts and exhorting diners to consume less salt. Now he is at it again, directing his wrath at sugary drinks in a new series of arresting advertisements that ask subway riders: “Are you pouring on the pounds?”
But an examination of what enters the mayoral mouth reveals that Mr. Bloomberg is an omnivore with his own glaring indulgences, many of them at odds with his own policies. And he struggles mightily to restrain his appetite.
… Under his watch, the city has declared sodium an enemy, asking restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily cut the salt in their dishes by 20 percent or more, and encouraging diners to “shake the habit” by asking waiters for food without added salt.
But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others’ lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt shaker.) He sprinkles so much salt on his morning bagel “that it’s like a pretzel,” said the manager at Viand, a Greek diner near Mr. Bloomberg’s Upper East Side town house.
Not even pizza is spared a coat of sodium. When the mayor sat down to eat a slice at Denino’s Pizzeria Tavern on Staten Island recently, this reporter spotted him applying six dashes of salt to it.
A health tip sheet from the mayor’s office tells New Yorkers to “drink smart” by choosing water, even though Mr. Bloomberg has a three- to four-cup-a-day coffee habit.
“I can count on two hands the number of times I have seen him drink water,” said one dining companion, who spoke on condition of anonymity, so as not to offend the mayor (who likes his coffee weak, and with milk).
It figures. Hypocrisy is so typical for liberals. Consider Laurie David, who has bragged about yelling at people who drive SUVs — while she jets around cross-country in a private luxury jet. Consider Al Gore, who tells us that we have to cut back on our energy usage — but uses enough energy at his palatial estate to power a small third-world country. And here is Michael Bloomberg, telling New Yorkers that they have to eat better while he doesn’t do it himself.
Look, I don’t begrudge anyone what they want to eat. I could care less if Bloomberg took a pound of salt, a Big Mac, a slice of pizza, and some Cheez-Its, liquified them, and drank it as a milkshake. He’s entitled to eat whatever he wants to eat. That’s not the problem. The problem is, why can’t anyone else? Why is Michael Bloomberg allowed to eat whatever he wants while he meanwhile is telling New Yorkers how they should be eating? If someone wants to eat eight Big Macs a day and balloon up to four hundred pounds, then that’s their problem. It’s also their problem when they get a heart attack at 35, not mine or anyone else’s. But that’s what liberals can’t understand, and that’s where we get the hypocrisy. Liberals think that they are just so smart and wise and all-knowing, that of course they should be allowed to make decisions for the rest of us.
They’re just too pompous and lazy to adhere to their own standards.
Hat Tip: Right Wing News
Rob Farrington says: Over here in the UK, we continually have politicians and ‘medical health professionals’ warning us about things such as the Fat Epidemic (based on BMI, which anyone armed with a little common sense, never mind scientific training can see isn’t an accurate measure of body fat), and the Drinking Epidemic (based on ‘units per week’, the safe limits of which were pulled out of the air and then divided by the number of days in a week, meaning that if you’re teetotal for most of the year but have four or five drinks on New Years’ Eve, then you can be classified as a ‘binge drinker’).
The thing is, most of the people who give us these grave warnings look halfway towards death’s door themselves – none of the warnings apply to them, since they’re armed with the facts, and are making a rational lifestyle decision. We poor proles, though – we’re just brainwashed by the fast food outlets and the supermarket chains. There are calls over here for a tax on ‘junk food’, and for stores to stock alcohol in a completely separate part of the store, so to help people resist the lure of cheap alcohol offers. Funny, that – I’ve gone into Tesco numerous times for some milk or coffee, and never once have I then inadvertently walked out with six boxes of frozen hamburgers and a 24-pack of lager.
Did I mention that thousands of pubs have had to close as a result of high taxes on alcohol and the ban on smoking indoors, whilst politicians are still free to smoke at the heavily-subsidised bar in the House of Commons?
The ‘Righteous’ (in the Nanny State sense) are the same the world over – they’re hypocritical and totally condescending, and as a result have no credibility whatsoever.
Don Carl says: You expected better from a guy who only ran as a Republican because of Guiliani’s undeniable success?
I R A Darth Aggie says: He devours burnt bacon
Burnt bacon? burnt? BURNT?? I call for a bacon fatwa to be levied against the Mayor!
I can understand being tempted toward pure hypocrisy, and occasionally succumbing to the temptation.
I can understand the desire to butt into the decisions made by others for their own good; it’s the First Terrace.
But both of those things? That’s a real mystery to me. Frankly, my libertarian impulses would have a difficult time being aroused if the government decided to throw a ton of cash at studying the “problem”; my impression is that just might be money wisely spent. It is a serious epidemic lately, as your examples and many others show. How’s this work? Is it guilt? A wounded conscience? A soul in desperate need of salvation? Maybe like Ted Kennedy promoting progressive taxes over the decades to make up for murdering Mary Jo?
Cassy, I can’t help but thinking we’re just one made-up-word away toward seriously kicking this thing in the ass. Once a name is applied to it and widely recognized, and it’s pointed out that this is a mental health problem that’s on the rise, who in the world could possibly defend it? It would be like defending scurvy, bone cancer or AIDS.
But, see, once the 8-Big-Mac-a-day gut balloons up to 400 pounds, then we’re heartless to deny him free health care; nevermind that if he hadn’t bought 8 Big Macs a day, he could have afforded it.
Liberals seem to like trying to fix the symptoms, while conservatives prefer to look at root causes and fix them there, and are branded as cold and heartless when we state that people may have to deal with the consequences of their actions and choices.
steved says: Cassy:
For the truth (Scientific) see the following site.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Anthony Watt really is a climate scientist and the cultish global warming followers hate good sites like these.
Steve
BobV says: Like liberals who believe paying taxes is a patriotic act, but refuse to do so themselves. Forcing others to take your place for whatever you deem to be “good for them” is a time honored liberal tradition.
PilgrimsProgressive says: Hmmm.. so if it is found out that cards using leaded gasoline are spreading poison all around and the guy who tells you this drove there using leaded gas… that’s a problem because unless he just stops driving.. he shouldn’t campaign to get rid of leaded gas? You are more free if you eat 8 big macs a day or engage in poor health habits that kill or disable you at a young age than if someone lets you know that this is a poor dieting choice… and that person can’t tell you anything UNLESS they only eat grass. So.. if a priest tells you not to engage in sexual immorality but he does.. then he shouldn’t have told you to do the RIGHT thing because he isn’t.
But if you DO the right thing and it benefits you…. then isn’t that a GOOD thing? Were you deprived of freedom if you went through the unpleasant social pressure that led you to make a change and stop smoking, eat unhealthy foods, or encouraged public interest in public transportation? If we’re ALL not doing the right thing.. and some of us are really privileged and not doing more of the right thing than all of us why should they not speak the truth. Al Gore has a huge house because he’s a wealthy man and like Bloomberg does what he wants and takes up more space than the rest of us. And there’s nothing MORE wrong with Laurie David flitting about on a corporate jet than 10,000,000 soccer moms driving huge vans around as if soccer balls or children have become SO MUCH LARGER in the last 30 years than kids who played soccer or hockey back then or the kids all over the world who manage to get to soccer games and back without a Land Cruiser. It’s indulgent.. and while that is being pointed out we should slowly move to change them. I’m not worried about Bloomberg eating Cheez-its… if he is presiding over a government that is, for good reason, making changes that serve the public good, that’s more powerful than “it’s MY heart.. and MY heart attack so leave me alone!” When you drop to the ground after that heart attack and people step over you and let the dogs eat your carcass… thus leaving no messy residue after the next rain, that’s one thing. But as long as we all pay to maintain 911 and someone will stop and call and see if you’re ok then you’re still covered under the social contract.
PilgrimsProgressive says: “Liberals seem to like trying to fix the symptoms, while conservatives prefer to look at root causes and fix them there, and are branded as cold and heartless when we state that people may have to deal with the consequences of their actions and choices.”
Hmmm.. that must be why the conservatives in the U.S. referred with disdain to the “root causes crowd” … clearly they were just talking about themselves. For one thing….Bloomberg is hardly a liberal. Just because he is open about the fact that there are gay people around and he doesn’t tell black people they talk good english doesn’t make him any different from dyed in the wool “conservatives” like Dick Cheney with his gay chief of staff and daughter or Mr. Wide Stance in Oregon. Talk about hypocrisy. He’s from a Jewish family in Massachusetts and is not an ignorant guy. That doesn’t make him a LIBERAL.. he was once a Democrat… so was Ronald Reagan.. that doesn’t make him LIBERAL. He worked for Goldman Sachs and built his own billion dollar business from the ground up. So he’s probably not going to melt into tears if the 800 foot JESUS sign you want put outside the courthouse doesn’t get put up.. he is clearly a business conservative and as a relatively liberal Republican figures he can use government measures to enforce things that will return an immediate public benefit like smoking bans and congestion pricing. There are arguments against both… but what kind of idiot would say.. “what I can’t drive my car into the city but the MAYOR gets driven around by a bunch of police!” Yes.. as the mayor he does. Big deal… trying to reduce congestion is STILL what he should be trying to do!
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