True Colors

from the nydailynews
Mayor Bloomberg blew a gasket on live TV Thursday as he prepared to voice support for gay marriage - berating a reporter in a wheelchair whose tape recorder accidentally started playing."Turn it off. It's a little too important for playing music," the mayor said, as a roomful of city and state politicians waited behind him.
"This is just too important to get disruptive, and maybe we'll just take everything outside."
For one minute and 36 seconds, Bloomberg stared at reporter Michael Harris of the Examiner blog until he could reach the recorder from his wheelchair and turn it off.
At one point, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn covered the microphone and appeared to whisper in Bloomberg's ear, "He's disabled."
"Okay, I understand that," the mayor replied. "He can still turn it off."
Harris said later that a photographer had jostled the recorder in his jacket pocket, making it play tape from a political rally the night before.
"It was in my coat which was a few seats over, so I couldn't reach it," said Harris, who was holding a camera and penned in by other photographers.
"I always turn my cell phone off. I couldn't figure out what it was."

He said he would offer an apology to Bloomberg if one was requested, but believed the mayor made too much of the distraction - and thought the mayor should apologize to him.
"I felt embarrassed that he singled me out like that," Harris said. "I think an apology would be the right thing to do. The mayor clearly was obnoxious in the way he reacted. Do I think I'm going to get one? No."
The episode was an odd distraction from the news conference to celebrate Gov. Paterson introducing a bill to allow gay marriage in New York.
Bloomberg arrived late to the event, stepping up to the podium after Paterson began speaking, and his body language was noticeably different from the smiling politicians and advocates around him.
He stood with his arms folded across his chest, gazing repeatedly at the ceiling while Paterson and other leaders spoke in support of the bill.
Paterson tried to make a joke when the tape began, telling Bloomberg, "Mayor, that's like your theme music."
"Okay, I appreciate that," the mayor replied. "Can we - something's playing? Can we just stop this and maybe we'll start again?"
Questioned a few minutes later about what transpired, Bloomberg said he would have done the same to any reporter whose electronics disrupted an event.
"I didn't reprimand him," the mayor said. "You have a responsibility to make sure you don't disrupt other people, and so does every other reporter that's there."
Harris was not there to hear Bloomberg's explanation. He skipped the mayor's question-and-answer session, saying, "I didn't want to further inflame the mayor in any way."