In Shift, Mayor To Greet Bush At JFK Airport
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Mayor Bloomberg has attacked President Bush and the federal government on a smorgasbord of issues over the past few months, but today when the president steps off Air Force One at John F. Kennedy International Airport the mayor will be one of the first to greet him.
When asked yesterday whether Mr. Bloomberg would greet Mr. Bush warmly or confront him on policy differences, the mayor’s press secretary, Stuart Loeser, would not say.
“Mayor Bloomberg is nothing if not a straight shooter,” Mr. Loeser said via e-mail. “If the Mayor has something to say to somebody, he says it directly to them, not to the media beforehand.”
Mr. Bush is due to land at JFK at 9 a.m. before traveling by helicopter to the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, where he is scheduled to deliver the commencement address. Mr. Bloomberg does not typically greet Mr. Bush at the airport when the president visits the region.
As recently as last week, Mr. Bloomberg attacked the federal government for the way it divvies up funding for bio-terrorism preparedness and saying it focuses on the “disaster du jour” rather than chronic public health problems like diabetes and obesity.
“Bloomberg has been highly critical of the government from guns to immigration to stem cell research, and it’s more than a critique of the government, it’s a critique of the president,” a professor of public affairs at Baruch College, Douglas Muzzio, said. “At the same time, the mayor is the diplomatic leader of this city, and when the president lands in the city, the mayor of New York should greet him.”
While Mr. Bloomberg has donated money to Mr. Bush and the Republican Party, he went out of his way to highlight his policy differences with them during his re-election campaign. In that election, the state Democratic Party attempted to paint him as a Bush supporter, even sending a representative in a Bush mask to many of his events. Mr. Bloomberg has always billed himself as an independent, a strategy that got him re-elected by a commanding margin in November.
