When other big-city, pro-gay-rights mayors threatened to bar Chick-fil-A from their domains, Bloomberg schooled them on free speech: "You really don't want to ask political beliefs or religious beliefs before you issue a permit. That's just not government's job."

When 10 members of the New York City Council threatened to withdraw funding from Brooklyn College because it dared to sponsor a discussion of boycotts and sanctions against Israel, Bloomberg snorted, "If you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea."

He made my day. We so rarely hear such a clear, cutting defense of free speech from an elected official (even a super-rich one who doesn't face another election). Usually, when controversial speech is at issue, politicians don't defend freedom so much as acknowledge it, prefacing their acknowledgement with apologies for its offensiveness. They treat the First Amendment like a curmudgeonly uncle they're forced to invite to Thanksgiving dinner.

Not Bloomberg. He presents free speech as an essential democratic virtue and treats government interference with it as a vice. He didn't condemn threats against Brooklyn College grudgingly, just because the First Amendment required him to do so. He condemned them because of their deleterious effects. "The last thing we need is for members of our City Council or State Legislature to be micromanaging the kinds of programs that our public universities run and base funding decisions on the political views of professors," he said. "I can't think of anything that would be more destructive to a university and its students."

Bloomberg can be patronizing and plutocratic, I know. You can criticize his muscling of a third term and complain about his ban on oversized sodas and smoking in city parks. Bemoan his bike lanes and the pedestrian mall at Herald Square, or mock his interest in banning styrofoam. Deplore his defense of repressive stop-and-frisk policies and his tactics in evicting occupiers from Zuccotti Park. (Protesters have no right to appropriate a public space indefinitely, 24/7, but they retain rights to due process and protection from police brutality.) Question his appreciation of the Second Amendment.

Still, Bloomberg remains the rare politician who understands and values the First.

Yes, his record on important civil liberties is mixed. From left or right, Bloomberg deserves, at most, two cheers. But, in general, he's derided more for his public-health lectures and bans than for his forthright defense of our first freedom. This is pop libertarianism at its pettiest and least protective of basic liberties. The nanny state is annoying; the speech-police state is one we should fear.

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