"Security detail? We don't got no stinking security detail."

So in case you missed it, the Department of Homeland Security has determined, now that the World Trade Center is gone, that there are no more landmarks in New York that some terrorist might consider worth attacking.

While Mayor Mike Bloomberg ticked off a list of landmarks somehow missed by Genius Chertoff’s department – dippy, insignificant places such as the New York Stock Exchange, the Brooklyn Bridge, Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building -- Chertoff cut off $125 million from money used last year to fund anti-terrorist activity in New York.

Listen, The New York Crank is no fan of Rudy Giuliani, but at least Rudy would have had the testicles to get angry and show it. Mike The Mediocrity didn’t even do that, at least not in public. Instead he got all querulous and inquisitive, musing in his whine-y voice, “…You really wonder what was going through somebody’s mind.”

Somebody? Mike, do you mean somebody like George Bush? Somebody like Richard Cheney? Somebody like Michael Chertoff?

Well, what can you expect from a man who pretends to to New Yorkers that he’s really a Democrat while he runs on the Republican ticket? Guts?

Hey, Mayor Mike, if you were half a man, you might remind the Homeland Security idiots that it costs several million dollars in planning, police salaries, overtime and gasoline to provide security every time George Bush comes to town to raise money for Republicans at the Waldorf.

Ditto Dick Cheney, and a host of other Republicans and adminsitration hacks who hate New York except when they come here to scrounge cash for Republican causes.

So Mike, just stand up like a man and tell them, “Supply your own damn security. No more police motorcade for you, pal. Now that you’ve cut our budget, we simply don’t have the money to provide for your personal security while the rest of our citizens are endangered.

“So no fleets of cop cars wasting time outside the doors of your hotel when you speak. No more disruptive traffic blockades clogging the city and preventing its endangered citizens from going about their business while you whiz from Manhattan to the airport in bulletproof safety. We’re no longer supplying any of the funny-looking security guys with black suits, weird lapel pins, and coils of wire coming out of their ears.

"Stick all of your own security costs in your own budget and then explain to the American people where you come off billing them a few million bucks so you can go to New York and raise a few million to support candidates who want to destroy the Social Security system.

“But if you do supply your own motorcade, be aware that we will have cops at every intersection, ready to stop your vehicles and ticket you if you or your people even think of running a red light.

“In other words, what security detail? This is landmark-free New York, pal. We don’t got no stinking security detail.”

***

For more details:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/01/AR2006060101214.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/422633p-356751c.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/06/no_icons_no_mon.html