Yes, Pile On

If you find that you’re exhausted from another obsequious New York Observer editorial, you can always rely on Clyde Haberman to perk you up again:

Only a month ago, before the storm, representatives of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg insisted somewhat superciliously that everything was fine in this regard. The issue then was whether the mayor’s desire to be a national figure on matters like gun control, immigration and economic policy might distract him from the less romantic, but essential, duties of running the city. His chief spokesman, Stu Loeser, was asked about this on Dec. 8 in an interview with NY1.

Mr. Loeser’s response was that Mr. Bloomberg and those around him can do it all. “If there’s one thing that the mayor has shown over the last eight years,” he said, “is that both he and we as a government really have the collective ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

A CityTime scandal and a disastrous snowstorm later — you may also throw in the earlier inelegant management of the appointment of a new schools chancellor — the walk-chew ratio turns out to need reconfiguration.