New York: 1; Wal-Mart: 0

As the malling of New York continues apace, let’s stop for a second to savor one Visigoth’s delicious outburst. “I don’t care if we are ever here,” Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. huffily announced to a collection of Times reporters and editors yesterday, apparently taking his ball and going home after several failed attempts to open a Big Apple outpost. “I don’t think it’s worth the effort,” he said. And: “It’s too hard to make money here.” And: “You have people who are just better than us.” (That last one, we’ll assume, was said with a petulant pout.)

Wal-Mart has eyed locations in Queens and Staten Island, even issuing series of pandering ads meant to either flatter or shame the latter borough’s residents. “On Staten Island, you can start the Marathon, take a ride on the ferry,” the well-researched copy read, before going in for the grammatically questionable kill: “The only thing missing is every day low prices.” So it’s a delightful turnabout to watch the head of the country’s largest retailer reduced to a hysterical fuck-all-y’all admission of defeat. Credit labor unions, City Council Democrats, and the grilling at the hands of the Times for making Scott blow his fuse so spectacularly. Anyone else want a piece of it? We’re looking at you, Pinkberry.

Wal-Mart Chief Writes Off New York [NYT]
Related: Unstoppable [NYM]