The Man Who Screwed Up the Storm

Meet Stephen Goldsmith, Deputy Mayor of Operations Stephen Goldsmith to you that is. He was given the job by Mayor Bloomberg last year and is a former Mayor of Indianapolis himself.

That's right, one of the Deputy Mayors of this town is probably rooting for the Colts tonight. And he's a Republican. He was an advisor to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and our own Rudy Giuliani. Egads.

So why was this fella Goldsmith hired? Well, don't you see, he's brilliant of course! Yes, Mayor Mike thought (and, I'm sure, still thinks) that Goldsmith is "dynamic" and an "out of the box" thinker and he was tasked with "transforming" city government to make it more ... I don't know what.

It's also his job, as deputy mayor for operations, to make sure that the city government is actually, you know, operating. Well, he did a "heckuva job" when the city government so manifestly failed to operate properly last week during the snowstorm. Apparently this recent transplant was in Washington, DC of all places, spending Christmas with his family. That's right: the man whose job it is to make sure that the city is operating full blast during emergencies was 250 miles away during an emergency!

Too bad this guru of "transformation" couldn't transform himself into an airplane and fly back the day after Christmas to do his job. 

It gets worse. In the year this supposedly brilliant Midwest Republican has been on the job, he has totally failed to learn how the city government or the city itself actually operates. He really is out of his depth and in over his head (sorry for the mixed metaphors). Can you imagine LaGuardia putting someone like Goldsmith in this job? Think not. 

And seriously, Mike, what were you thinking appointing someone who worked for George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaigns? Considering what a disaster that presidency and that campaign turned out to be, should we really be surprised? Anyone who worked for those two maniacs shouldn't be hired for anything, in my opinion. If someone who worked for them applied to a job I was hiring for, I would head for zee hilz! 

So please, Mike, tell Stephen to pack up and go home to Indianapolis. NYC already got David Letterman and Kurt Vonnegut so we don't need him.