The NY Daily News reports Mayor Bloomberg is normally guarded about using profanity in public, so his use of the salty phrase “screw them” on his John Gambling Show/WOR-AM NY radio appearance 6/18 should be forgiven as an innocent slip of the tongue.
Here’s the context: While discussing the proposed tightening of regulation of Wall Street, the mayor noted that some of the union protesters who staged a rally against budget cuts this week outside City Hall had railed about “getting even with bankers.”
The mayor suggested that since taxes from Wall Street earnings and bonuses pay for their salaries, “our cops and firefighters and teachers they should be out there defending the bankers.”
Bloomberg noted one of the protesters had said, “Oh, you know, a lot of these [bankers] were in favor of charter schools… so we’re going to go screw them.”
He quickly corrected himself: “Hurt them — pardon my language.”
Going on, the mayor said it’s a popular sentiment among the “political chatter class” to be down on bankers and Wall Street financiers and to push for over-stringent regulations, such as banning derivatives.
Such overzealous regulations would merely drive business out of the city or out of the country, damaging the city’s ability to pay its workforce, argued Bloomberg, who nonetheless asserted, “I’m not here to defend bankers, I’m here to defend New York City business.”
The story noted that Bloomberg used a semi-profane word on the radio in recent memory, like in April when he praised Sen. Chuck Schumer for “working his ass off.”
RBR-TVBR observation: Agree with the story. These are tough/almost chaotic times and emotions are flaring on radio, TV and online. This is a good example of what makes the radio medium so fantastic – we tune in to get charged/energized on the issues and if the hosts/guests get us more involved in our communities because of it, that’s great — and we tune in again and again. However, we bet a finger will be firmly planted on the delay button at WOR the next time the mayor is at the mic—we all know what the FCC can do when folks step too far over the over the line!
