http://mediamatters.org/items/200706250010?f=h_topOn the June 24 broadcast of ABC's This Week, ABC News senior national correspondent Jake Tapper and host George Stephanopoulos, discussing a possible independent presidential run by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, described him as a "liberal Democrat." However, Bloomberg endorsed Bush's re-election in 2004 and has expressed support for the Iraq war and tied it to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In addition, no mention was made of a significant Bloomberg controversy that undermines the assertion that he is a "liberal Democrat": the New York Police Department's (NYPD) surveillance of nonviolent anti-Bush and anti-Iraq war activists and protesters prior to the 2004 Republican National Convention -- a story that, as Media Matters for America noted (here and here), has been covered several times in recent months.
In his August 30, 2004, speech to the Republican National Convention, Bloomberg stated: "The president deserves our support. We are here to support him. And I am here to support him." Moreover, as noted by New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer in his June 23 column (subscription required), Bloomberg has "offer
quiet, unambiguous support" for the war. In particular, Dwyer pointed to a statement of Bloomberg's from May 2004:
In May 2004, a year after the invasion, Mr. Bloomberg served as host to Laura Bush, who had come to New York in an effort to rally support for the war effort. Mrs. Bush visited a memorial for Sept. 11th victims. Standing next to Mrs. Bush, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, Mr. Bloomberg, right, suggested that New Yorkers could find justification for the war at the World Trade Center site, even though no Iraqi is known to have had a hand in the Sept. 11 attacks.
''Don't forget that the war started not very many blocks from here,'' he said that day in 2004.