Cockburn is amused to learn that Michael Bloomberg is reconsidering a presidential run — in light of the news that Joe Biden might be #MeTooed out of the 2020 race. It’s funny on a number of fronts. One, for a billionaire media titan, the former New York mayor seems amazingly indecisive. Last we heard, he had decided that he couldn’t win and therefore was ducking out: his $500 million war chest would go towards hating President Trump instead. Now, with Biden in trouble with the opposite sex, he’s mulling re-entry, if that is the right word.
It’s doubly entertaining because Bloomberg’s #MeToo rap sheet could be substantially more troubling than Biden’s. When Bloomberg ran for mayor in 2001, a number of disturbing allegations emerged concerning his conduct towards the fairer sex.
The ex-website Gawker, which in many cases has served as the #MeToo movement’s Cassandra, published a rundown of his various transgressions:
‘In 1996 and 1997, four women filed sexual harassment suits against Bloomberg LP. One of them, a sales executive named Sekiko Garrison, alleges that Michael Bloomberg told her to “Kill it!” when she shared with him that she was pregnant. Asked by Garrison to repeat himself, Bloomberg said again, “Kill it!”
‘In a 1998 deposition relating to the Olszewski case, Bloomberg testified that he wouldn’t call the rape allegation genuine unless there was “an unimpeachable third-party witness.” “Describe for me your conception of how there could be a third-party witness to confirm or deny the truthfulness of her allegations,” the attorney asked Bloomberg. Bloomberg responded, “There are times when three people are together.” Later asked if he’d ever made a comment to the effect of “I’d do that piece of meat” or “I’d “do her in a second,” Bloomberg said simply, “I don’t recall ever using the term ‘meat’ at all.”’
And this New York magazine profile of Christine Quinn gives a hint of the former mayor’s bluntness when discussing the fairer sex:
‘Later in the evening, the host interrupted me to point out that the mayor himself had just arrived. Did I want to meet him? Sure. My friend and I followed the host over, shook Bloomberg’s hand, and my friend thanked him for his position on gun control. Without even acknowledging the comment, Bloomberg gestured toward a woman in a very tight floor-length gown standing nearby and said, “Look at the ass on her.”’
So — which of these two centrist darlings will throw his pervy hat in the 2020 ring? Or are they both, as old men often are, not quite up to the task?
