I’ve just been looking at Mayor Mike Bloomberg on TV, briefing New Yorkers. Our city lies blanketed under a fluffy fur coat of snow, the biggest snowfall since 1996. Up and down the roads, city workers are laboring to clear this blanket that, although beautiful, gets in the way of making the city work.
With Mayor Bloomberg were grizzled department heads in their winter vests and parkas. It is obvious that these guys are what we call dedicated civil servants: hands-on men who work to serve the civil polity. They looked like guys who had worked themselves up in their departments. They had working-class faces and voices.
I trust them implicitly.
And I was reminded of the lot in Washington, the folks in our administration, the political appointments to civil servant jobs, the Busheviks, the Michael Browns.
And I was thinking of how much I distrust Washington, and of how much I trust the officials in New York.
I was thinking of the fact that the last thing on the minds of NYC officials is politics.
And the first thing on the minds of Washington officials is politics.
I was thinking of how the one thing the NYC guys are into, is doing their jobs.
And that all the Washington guys are interested in, is how they’re looking — when they should be doing their jobs, never mind how they look doing them.
I was thinking of how efficiently NYC runs, and how inefficiently and incompetently Washington runs. I know my taxes in New York are being spent well, while Washington is blowing my taxes on god knows what.
I was thinking there could be many Americans who trust the officials in their towns more than they trust the folks in Washington. There seems to be this miasma in Washington that turns even good men into posturing blowhards.
I was thinking that I wouldn’t want Michael Brown on my side in a bar fight, but I would feel covered with any of the NYC guys on my side. One NYC official is worth a thousand Michael Browns.
And I was thinking how lucky I am to live in New York — and how unlucky I am to live in America.
(ENJOYED reading this? More stuff like it on my irreverent blog at Adam Ash.)
Edited: [GH]
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Your observations here just bear out what has been shown in poll after poll. When asked two questions the answers are invariably the same.
"Do you trust government" - people overwhelmingly answe no.
"Do you trust your representatives in washington" - people overwhelmingly answer yes.
There's a logical disconnect in the American mind. They can't make the connection between corruption in governenment in general and corruption in the people they elect or who represent them locally.
Dave
2 - neocondi
With New York sending people like Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer to Washington, you're not helping much.
Phony, manipulative, snooty lawyer/politicians if there ever was such.
That aside, three cheers for New York!
3 - Bliffle
Mike Brown seems to be the poster boy for the pampered perfumed manipulative irresponsible pink-faced spoiled brat that represents the New American Rulers.
4 - Elvira Black
Adam:
Although I don't feel "unlucky... to live in America," I'm with you on the rest.
Rudy, Bloomie, our/their superb police commissioners, anti-terror strategists, firefighters, police--all top notch. To me, they're the epitome of New York's "survive and thrive" spirit.
I feel very lucky to live in NYC too. Hi, neighbor!
5 - Dave Nalle
But Elvira, down here in Texas we feel the same way about our leaders - yet oddly a lot of people in New York don't share that view.
Dave
6 - Elvira Black
Dave:
They say we New Yorkers can be the most "xenophobic" Americans of all. We're hugely territorial, even as far as our own neighborhoods go--hence the classic downtown hipster's mantra: "I never go anywhere above 14th Street"...fugeddaboudit!
7 - Nancy
The difference is, the guys in the NY parkas are not pampered, overprivileged, overindulged, monied members of the Ruling Classes, as most politicians & policy wonks tend to be, from either party. Most politicians have lived all their lives a looooong way from the 'reality' the rest of us have to live in, isolated from the slings & arrows of outrageous fortune by their fortunes & family connections, and insulated from the anxieties of living by trust funds & big bank accounts. As Adam pointed out, these guys in the parkas have worked with their hands. Bush claims there is no class war, but as usual, he's blind, deaf, & dumb in every sense of the word on that subject, because there certainly is and in the past decade or so I'd say it's intensified, as the rich get richer & everyone else gets left behind (Mr. Nalle's economic theories to the contrary). I think that's why we trust the guys in the parkas, but not the ones on The Hill. Just my opinion, of course.
8 - pedro more
It is a shame to the people of New York that the mayor sit in his throne and speaks on national television to say what a great job has been done during this snow storm, however the streets of the Bronx continue to suffer and poor working communities suffer by having to plow themselves out of the snow that the city's shovel pick up the snow and shoev it back on the automobiles causing damages, and the streets go on without snow removal and the people watch the police impose parking tickets while other neighborhoods get the better treatment. We pay taxes just the same.IS THIS HIS RETALIATION FOR THE RECENT MTA STRIKE. All of this has to come out of the working poor and minorities as you call them. " THIS IS A DISGRACE"
9 - Dave Nalle
Nancy, you're sadly deluded if you think that Mayor Bloomberg and the ruling cadre in New York City are not as much a part of the educational/cultural/economic elite of the country as Bush and his cronies are. Bloomberg went to Johns Hopkins and then graduate school at Harvard and he's an enormously wealthy stock analyst and founder of the Bloomberg Group. Have you noticed there's a whole cable channel named after him? That's not a coincidence. And BTW, we're fraternity brothers.
Dave