"Death Or Total Incapacitation"

Gee, what a strange rumor:

After today's Page Six float about the possibility of Mayor Bloomberg serving as Treasury secretary for President Obama — and a WSJ story suggesting the White House is cozying up to the mayor to keep him from running himself — the mayor insisted he's not going anywhere.

At his Bronx Q & A, The Post's Dave Seifman asked if there were "any circumstances" under which he wouldn't finish his third — and hard-fought-for — term.

"Yes," the mayor replied.

"What are they?" asked Seifman.

"If I died," Bloomberg said.

When Seifman asked if there were any others, the mayor added, "I don’t think there’s any — I suppose total incapacitation would also. Short of that, I can’t think of any."

We've certainly seen the movie before — as recently as 2008, in fact — in which the mayor denies any interest in running for office while there's a covert effort to explore it. But because of those denials, the bar would have to be a bit higher this time in terms of activity.

The Treasury secretary piece is, for many reasons, a bit hard to fathom — as a wise man noted to me recently, there is, indeed, one job in Washington the mayor indicated starting a decade ago that he'd be interested in, but it's currently filled.

The rumor really didn't make any sense.

Yes, it's true Obama and his political people are wary about Bloomberg running.

And yes, it's true that Obama will be VERY vulnerable to a Bloomberg run in 2012.

However Bloomberg would NEVER agree to serve in somebody else's administration, so even if Obama and his political people were naive enough or desperate enough to offer Timmeh Geithner's job to Bloomberg, there is no way he would ever take it.

Bloomberg doesn't work for other people.

Other people work for Bloomberg.

That's why he's the Little Dictator.

As for the other thing about death or total incapacitation, well, I don't think I want to say much about those right now...