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If Michael Bloomberg is so interested in trimming the city's budget, allow us to kindly suggest one way to save the city $250,008.00 in 2009: Fire Kevin Sheekey immediately. The pit bull deputy mayor, who championed Bloomberg's non-bid for the White House and then counseled his boss against running for a third term (advice his boss ignored, of course), is now on the hot seat for his aggressive efforts to get Caroline Kennedy named as Hillary Clinton's successor in the Senate. And yet his attempt to strong-arm the political establishment—like, say, instructing the head of a union to support Kennedy because she, too, is Irish—has only managed to do more damage than good. "Everything was backfiring," a source told the Post of Sheekey's efforts to corral support on Kennedy's behalf.

Perhaps it's about time Sheekey follow up on his longstanding threat to seek out a higher paying job in the private sector? Or, even, better, head abroad: When he was asked by the Observer's Azi Paybarah at the beginning of this year what he'd do if Bloomberg was elected president, he said he'd ask to be sent to the U.S. Embassy in Ireland.

So there's always the slim possibility that if Bloomberg doesn't dump him—and no fat corporate jobs come along—President-elect Obama might be kind enough to take him off our hands.