Bloomberg Will Only Get Squirrelier

Daniel Menaker takes on our "Mayor-for-Life" in a great piece in today's Huffington Post. He has also noticed that Bloomberg seems to be gradually losing it, and ties it back to term limits extension:

The conflict the Mayor evidently feels about his term-limits disdain came through most clearly in that Times piece about the rancorous press conference a couple of weeks ago. "I am who I am." First person singular. Later: "Most people seem to like the Mayor." Third person singular--as if, like Dick Nixon with "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore," Bloomberg was having a verbally schizoid break. And "You can't separate the campaign from what you do as Mayor." Second person singular. And, finally, "We will live with that." First person plural.

In my experience, when a public figure begins to confound and conflate all these persons and singulars and plurals, especially when speaking spontaneously, it's a sign of significant psychological conflict. I think the Mayor is, perhaps unconsciously, unhappy with the scheming he did to allow himself to run for a third term. I think his rigor and scruples on the golf course may be an effort to compensate for his fastness and looseness elsewhere.

Bloomberg rarely, if ever, loses. Not only is he going to lose in November, but there will be some special schadenfreude moments to savor as he unravels.