Hamill: The economy is booming, but politicians are nuts
It took President Obama seven years to fix the economy that was destroyed under George W. Bush, and now we have another Bush ahead in the Republican polls. Among New York pols, Mike Bloomberg has kept it classy and Timothy Cardinal Dolan needs to remember he's not an elected official.
By Denis Hamill, February 10, 2015Ice scraped from my windscreen…
As sleety rain fell on Monday, I filled my car at the BP station on Northern Blvd. in Queens for under $40. A radio newscaster said we added another 257,000 jobs in January, 20,000 more than expected, 59 straight months of job growth totaling 11.6 million private sector jobs. Unemployment was at 5.7%, 2% among Americans with bachelor’s degrees.
The Dow was over 17,000. It took seven years for President Obama to dig us out of the quicksand of the George W. Bush economy that tanked in October 2008. Bill Clinton once beat old man Bush on James Carville’s slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” And now, like a bad joke, a third Bush was ahead in the polls for the Republican nod in New Hampshire. Time for Hillary to ask, “Do you really want another Bush economy?”
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In a time of perp walks and nasty feuds in New York politics, the classiest pol around has been Mike Bloomberg, who has kept respectfully quiet since Bill de Blasio took office. He’s let Ray Kelly play Dick Cheney defending the indefensible racially lopsided policies of stop-and-frisk of the Bloomberg years. Bloomberg is still the best national spokesman for gun control — but he’s whacked out condemning Colorado for legalizing pot.
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I liked Timothy Cardinal Dolan when I interviewed him a few months ago. He’s a smart, jovial guy who surprised me by saying he was a Jimmy Breslin fan. But Dolan enjoys a tax-free religious status and is supposed to honor a separation of church and state. And yet here he is using his mantle as the archbishop of the New York Roman Catholic Diocese to publicly oppose a bill that would legalize assisted suicide for suffering, terminally ill adults. Like the Rev. Al Sharpton and all the political rabbis and imams out there, Dolan should refrain from preaching politics from the pulpit. If he wants to weigh in as a private citizen, fine. Not wearing his tax-free cardinal hat.
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Does anyone miss Mitt Romney yet?
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Meanwhile, still scraping ice ...
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