Yikes!!! The Republican Mushroom Cloud is back! You remember Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet—the whole sleazy crowd. We suffer from a national memory disorder and a limited attention span, but really, it wasn’t that long ago.

Better invade Iraq: He’s building nukes. He’s going to blow up the world. Germ warfare. Whaddya want? The smoking gun to turn into a mushroom cloud? And then there were all those colorful terrorist alerts right before key political moments. You remember those?

Well, we know how that one worked out. The fraudsters kept their power, their cronies at Halliburton and the other war-profiteers with the sole source contracts made a bundle, a lot of innocent people died—and are still dying—the country went bankrupt, and they left Obama to try to clean up the mess. And they’re still at it; doing everything they can to stop him.

Now we have the New York City version. Whaddya want? Another Detroit?

Giuliani is campaigning with Bloomberg and telling the ultra- orthodox Jewish voters in Brooklyn that unless Bloomberg is reelected, New York City could become another Detroit. Crime will soar—and you know all the rest. You can almost set it in song:

There’ll be muggers and pederasts, and murderers and buffalo wings; these are a few of Thompson’s favorite things.

Giuliani even threw in a reference to the ovens:

“I think, you know, because of the presence of the Holocaust survivors and so many other things, how important this is, so please vote for a mayor that’s been there for you.”

A mugger lurking behind every shul.

This is maybe the most craven and corrupt piece of garbage we’ve seen in what has become a bottomless pit of political trash.

You remember Giuliani, don’t you? He’s the guy who warned New Yorkers that if George Pataki became governor, it “would usher in a state government “of D’Amato, for D’Amato and by D’Amato.” “If the D’Amato/Pataki crew ever get control ethics will be trashed.” Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. But he said it only because he wanted to take over the Republican Party in New York.

He was also the guy who endorsed D’Amato and helped him win another senate term. Here he is with senator sleaze in a made for Hollywood undercover drug buy.

Giuliani helped The Fonz present himself as a drug-busting crime-fighter rather than the sleazy political operator everyone knew him to be. He did it because D’Amato had ruined his first effort at becoming mayor and he didn’t want it to happen again. And now Giuliani is with Bloomberg because the mega billionaire will underwrite his next political move. It’s only tip money for Bloomberg.

As for Bloomberg, remember this one?

This is simple folks—Bloomberg is the guy who put his thumb in our collective eye and said “do something about it—I dare you!”

Well, all those New Yorkers who aren’t enthused about Thompson because he doesn’t have the charisma they yearn for, or because they’ve bought into the $200 million dollar spinmeisters’ tale (my grandmother would call it a bubbameiser) that he’s not competent or that the city will turn into Detroit, all you folks who are thinking about sitting home or worse, voting for these serial liars and con artists deserve what you get. I’m a fed up New Yorker, and I’ll do whatever I can to help Thompson help us take back my city.

This election isn’t about Bill Thompson V. Michael Bloomberg; it’s about Michael Bloomberg V. The People of New York City. I know which side I’m on.

- Neil Fabricant