Dan : Most of these so-called politicians do not want transparency in government. Once they are elected & are incumbents , they rule as Kings. They don't have to answer to the citizens. After all we are only mere peasants. We have an issue in south Brooklyn with an $ 64 million Amphitheater that Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz wants built. His personal Vanity Project. He's by passed the community without going through the URLLIP process. He doesn't answer any questions , just giving the standard spin. And boy can he spin it. At a CB 13 Parks & Recreation Committee meeting last week that took place at the NY Aquarium, over 200 residents attended, who are opposed to this project for many, many reasons were not allowed to speak of their concerns & the Chair just ended the meeting by saying " meeting adjourned." The disgraced ones are those who are elected & don't give a shit about either news reporters questions or citizens questions.

This news item, including Azi's video, made "Hardball" on MSNBC!

It's too bad they didn't identify Azi as the reporter, but clearly David Shuster (filling in for Chris Matthews) wasn't sympathetic to Mayor Bloomberg, calling him "cheap."

I don't know - perhaps calling a billionaire cheap is hitting below the belt. Then again...

a bit of irony here. Azi writes for the New York Observer, whose editorial policy, while generally progressive, is embarrassingly pro-Bloomberg, and pro-developer too. It stands to reason, since the Observer exists at least in part as a trade paper for the RE industry.

Even though most of their political coverage,both local and national, is pretty accurately reported (readable and lively, too), they've had an obvious blind spot about Hizzemperor there too. Not surprising, I guess, but I can't wait to see how (or if) they cover this incident. Will Azi report on himself?

As long as Bloomberg isn't answering questions, here's a few more he probably won't answer:

Why is it that with billions of extra dollars in state funding for education and eight straight years of declining enrollment, there aren't enough desks for all the students?

More on education: How much of the declining student enrollment is the result of children dropping out before their junior year of high school -- and if they were counted instead of becoming "unstudents" in true Orwellian fashion, what would that do to the graduation rates?

After years of saying "do more with less" while the Wall Street money was pouring in to our coffers (giving him lots "more" to work with), what exactly did he mean by "less," and how does he define our current tax revenues?

What percentage of felonies (and major misdemeanors) aren't counted by CompStat, and what does that say about the real crime rate -- meaning crimes that affect most victims in NYC but don't get included in the official statistics?

Having failed to enact any major environmental legislation despite the hoopla surrounding his PlaNYC, how does he expect to get anything done in this area during a third term?

Finally, when does he plan to begin answering questions about what a third Bloomberg term would look like instead of referring those questions to his "campaign?"

This race is Bloomberg's to lose, and the way he's going, he just might do it.