Recent criticisms from Mayor Michael Bloomberg of Obama for allowing the Supercommittee to fail, and of the GOP presidential hopefuls as anti-science, have fueled speculation that hizzoner is once again eyeing the oval office, even prompting some to call on Bloomberg to jump in the 2012 race.
But during a speech at MIT Tuesday night, where he was on hand to discuss the competition (now down to 4 finalists) to build a "Super Genius" school in New York, Bloomberg said he prefers City Hall to the White House, given that he is already a mini-president of his very own mini-country.
"I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world," Bloomberg said, according to The New York Observer. "I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom's annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have."
He then described politicians in Washington as out-of-touch, and championed city governments as the entities that actually get things done.
"I don't listen to Washington very much, which is something they're not thrillled about," Bloomberg said. "We have every kind of people from every part of the world and every kind of problem." He then continued, "The difference between my level of government and other levels of government is that action takes place at the city level. The cities and mayors are where you deal with crime, you deal with real immigration problems, you deal with health problems, you deal with picking up the garbage."
Is the billionaire mayor saying he has the perfect resume to be President? Or just dismissing Washington as ineffective?
In March, after a botched blizzard response, Bloomberg pondered his future:
The mayor, a keen student of power, is privately conceding to friends that he will not be a candidate for president, a position he covets, and he is coming to grips with the reality that philanthropy, even on the sky-is-the-limit scale that he is planning, will not be enough to make him a potent force in national and international affairs.