early and often

Bloomberg Again Says He’s Not Running, and Starts to Convince Us

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Bloomberg earlier this week.Photo: Getty Images

Mayor Bloomberg insisted yet again this morning that we shouldn’t read too much into his decision to leave the Republican party. “I don’t disagree with what either national party stands for, because I don’t think either national party stands for anything,” he declared at a breakfast for civic types. (Zing!) He proceeded to dismiss a specific timetable for withdrawal from Iraq as “nonsensical,” express skepticism about national school testing (“There is a tendency in a democracy to dumb down”), and spit out various scolds (“Get real! Get serious!”). And so it occurred to us that maybe we believe him when he says he’s not running for president: We think he just wants to be national critic. —Alec Appelbaum

Bloomberg Again Says He’s Not Running, and Starts to Convince Us