Bloomberg in Bermuda

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. 12.2.13. Photo by Maurice Pinzon

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. 12.2.13. Photo by Maurice Pinzon

By New York News Network
Reporter #1: “Can you tell us where you were yesterday morning and why you chose not to go to the scene of the train derailment?”

Reporter #2: “There have been reports you were golfing during the day in Bermuda yesterday. Is that something folks should be concerned about?”

“Should you have been here instead of Bermuda?”  

And this question from another reporter: “Why did it take you so many hours to send out that tweet?”

This is what Mayor Bloomberg was faced with the day after the Metro-North train derailment in the Bronx. The mayor usually does not take questions from the press during   bill-signing ceremonies. Normally, there are few reporters during bill-signings.  

But they were there on Monday because according to the Wall Street Journal, Mayor Bloomberg was in Bermuda. The Journal cited, “a person familiar with the matter.” There were no pictures of the mayor in Bermuda. Instead, the Journal’s blog post was accompanied by a picture of the mayor in a winter coat.

At one minute past midnight on January 1, 2014, Michael Bloomberg will no longer be mayor, but until then, it is clear the New York City press corps will assume he is on duty and on call 24/7, and so he had to contend with questions about his whereabouts during the Thanksgiving weekend.

For the record, Mayor Bloomberg said what was important was, did the job get done, and according to the mayor, “It was a textbook kind of response.”

He said, “it’s my job to make sure that our police officers and firefighters and EMTs are well-led, well-trained, well equipped to do the job, and they are, and I think they prove it time and time again, and they did so again yesterday.”

The mayor did not directly answer where he was at the time of the train accident, except to say, “You just have to check the public schedule for   where I am at any point and time and it will certainly tell you anything that is germane for the job. “

And did he tweet?

“I didn’t tweet anybody, maybe my staff did, but you can rest assured, that I did not.”

It is anybody’s guess whether Mr. Bloomberg will tweet once he is out of office.

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