Plum Crazy

It's been a while since I've posted an entry to the Mikey Watch category, but Michele brings something to my attention which is just crying out for another Mikey bashing fest. Mikey apparently wishes he could have written Dr. Atkins' obituary:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is apparently a conspiracy theorist when it comes to the circumstances of Dr. Robert Atkins's death last April. Bloomie, it seems, ain't buying the story that the anti-carb diet guru died as a result of injuries sustained during a fall on an icy Manhattan street. During a lunchtime photo op yesterday at a Brooklyn firehouse, Bloomberg announced, "I don't believe that bullshit that [Atkins] dropped dead slipping on the sidewalk." The 61-year-old billionaire added that Atkins was "fat" and served "inedible" food at his Hamptons home when Bloomberg visited. The mayor's inference, of course, was that Atkins was actually felled by his meat-heavy diet, that his arteries were clogged with beef drippings.

Ah, Mikey, always the soul of class and wit. But it gets better. After NY1 aired Mikey's little gaffe, his spokesman blamed the media:

"It was a joke told at an off-the-record photo op," said Bloomberg spokesman Jordan Barowitz. "We congratulate New York 1 for their willingness to dispense with journalistic ethics in order to run a cheap story."

Well, as a former New York City resident, I congratulate Mikey for his willingness to dispense with class in order to tell a cheap joke about someone's death. And his apparent belief that people will believe that a photo op is off-the-record. Isn't a photo op, by definition, on-the-record? What kind of opportunity is an off-the-record photo?

You go, Mikey!