I thought I’d take a short timeout from the on-going wildness in the markets (don’t pay any attention to the rallies you might see in the markets for one day–things are still very dire) to make an observation about the politics of hypocrisy in New York City. This has some relevance to the lives of working people because, rather than focus on things like the coming attack on public pensions and the growing ranks of unemployed, the elected officials of this city are exhibiting their usual propensity to focus on only one thing–their political careers.

   This does not make them any worse than other political leaders. But, since it’s happening in the greatest city in the country, it’s a bit more sobering. For those of you who have not followed this little story: his Lordship, the mayor, decided that only he can save the city and, therefore, he wants to run for a third term, even though the voters of this city–you know, the citizens–have twice said elected city officials only get two terms. For the record, I think term limits is dumb (we do have term limits–they are called "elections") but, like it or not, the people do get to decide how they wish to be governed. His Lordship is now trying to get the City Council to change the term limits law.

   And so…:

   The Speaker of the City Council reverses herself–surprise!–and says she now supports the desire of his Lordship, the Mayor, to serve another term because he, and only he, can save the city. Of course, reversing your opinion is not a bad thing–when you learn you are wrong, it’s a good thing to say so (think: George Bush and Iraq…or, better yet, think the junior Senator from New York and her vote for the war…but I digress). The problem is that the Speaker’s reversal is about one thing and one thing only–saving her political career. Her chances of running for mayor next year are zero–she’s a dead person walking, what with her–you choose the option–inability to keep track of money in a slush fund OR her inability to have her staff follow her orders (she claims she told her staff to get rid of the slush fund and…they didn’t listen to her). Any opponent would make mince-meat out of her.

   Now that the Speaker has shown her cards, expect a number of the "undecideds" to bow down to his Lordship’s needs. They will be rewarded with perhaps a better committee assignment, or maybe a sprinkling of his Lordship’s personal largesse–anonymously, of course–to some favored community group. The people be damned.

   And let’s point out this fact, too–a number of the politicians who are against the term limits change are not doing this for the goodness of democracy. They, too, are looking out for their careers. A number of the loudest opponents have been busily making plans to run for offices that would be vacated by the current officeholders who would have to move on because of the current term limits. Why do I think they are as whorish as the "yes" votes? Here’s an example: Not a single one of these folks showed up recently to a rally on Wall Street called by organized labor to protest the Paulson bailout for bankers–a bailout that, in its original form, gave almost dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary and would have had profound implications for democracy. Why didn’t they show up? Because they were told by the organizers of the protest that they could not speak at the rally. Ah, far be it for these high-minded people to simply be a person in the crowd. No mike, no appearance. So, I find myself a bit less than impressed by their new-found embrace of democracy.

   This is all quite sad. Term limits are an abomination–if Paul Wellstone was alive today, I would want him to serve as long as he could; the same is true of some other truly decent people who believed that the call to public service was about making peoples’ lives better, not simply making a career for the politicians themselves. While I don’t like the public’s cynicism towards politicians, I do get it. Deep down, the vast majority of our elected officials don’t care about doing good for the citizens–they care about doing good for themselves. The people get that–and their response to the feeling of helplessness and disgust with the system is term limits. Term limits will only go away when people feel the system has changed.