Patricianage

In a previous story, the NY Times exposed the fact that the Bloomberg administration has a whiter shade of pale-even when compared to the Sharpton-excoriated Giuliani administration. The Bloombergistas idea of diversity is to hire someone from Goldman Sachs if there's no one from Lehman Brothers readily available. But now, on top of this incredible whiteness of being, we are told by the Times that we can add rank nepotism to the hiring practices of the current mayoralty-right down to its summer interns.

As the paper points out: "They are the offspring of boldface names, like Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group; and Laurence A. Tisch, who was a hotel mogul and chief executive of CBS. They enjoyed a comfortable childhood and, as it turns out, a coveted summer job: They all landed internships at New York’s City Hall under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, according to a list obtained by The New York Times through the Freedom of Information Act."

What, you mean the Bloombergistas weren't proud to just give the list up to the Times? We can't see why not, after all, everyone who has followed this gang of class clowns knows that they front for their own kind-that is why we have, via the supple mind of Dan Janison, labeled the practice, "patricianage;" the rewarding of the well connected class mates of Mike Bloomberg and company.

The Times hones in on this diversity travesty: "But the records offer a glimpse inside the social and power circles of the Bloomberg administration, which has accommodated dozens of young people with connections to the mayor’s friends, business associates and government appointees for the prestigious, if unpaid, slots. Take Jacob Doctoroff, whose father, Daniel L. Doctoroff, was deputy mayor and is now the president of Bloomberg L.P. He had an internship in 2002. He was in the eighth grade."

Of course, the Son of Dan should be rewarded since his father was the most skilled practitioner of patricianage-rewarding Steve Ross and the Related Company a wide range of real estate opportunities-and some of the most lucrative didn't even have the fig leaf of a bidding process. But the nepotism reveals the fact that this administration is a firm believer in nobless oblige-and sees the talented elite as the obligers in question.

What this ugly reality masks, however, is the extent to which these internships are a real career builder for anyone-and every slot that was taken up by some son of a CEO, deprived a less privileged striver of real opportunity: "Career counselors view the appointments, which are primarily summer stints, as plum résumé enhancers, partly because of Mr. Bloomberg’s stature. In a 2002 opinion that allowed Ms. Bloomberg’s daughter, Emma, to work as an unpaid adviser, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board declared that “although Ms. Bloomberg will not be compensated by the city for her work, the opportunity to work in City Hall confers prestige as well as experience that is not widely available and that many would regard as valuable.”

So, the more we see the isolated and privileged reality of this administration, the more we can appreciate just how removed it is from the realities of neighborhood life in NYC-and the real reason why Bloomberg remains out of touch with average folks, something that his mega-development policy making highlights. Just as all of his friends are billionaires, so it is with the coveted internships-here, as with all things Bloomberg, the government choir sings with a distinctively upper class accent.