Spin Cycle

Eliot Spitzer, the former governor, got himself nicknamed "the steamroller" based on his own self-description to a legislator. But this heaviest of heavy political machinery was dismantled in March -- after it was discovered to have been doing some unauthorized road work.

Now we have Michael Bloomberg, who ends his mayoral run next year, maintaining that the use of the verb "maintained" to describe his assertions regarding contact with the late Sean Bell's family amounts to calling him a liar. (See previous posting).

What our city-and-suburb-slickers might not know is that the machinery known around these parts as a grader is also called a "maintainer" elsewhere in the country, according to our native Nebraskan staffer Erik German.

So given Hizzoner's wack public eruption over Michael Frazier's use of the word in a question, and our obligation to enlighten the reading public, we display a diagram of a steamroller, above, and a maintainer, below. That way we can tell our politicians, past and present, apart.

Bloomberg's new mechanical monicker, "the Maintainer," goes nicely with the fictional piece of machinery once played by his friend in California, Arnold Schwartzenegger, aka "the Terminator."