http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gos...1p-137839c.html

This is why I liked Guliani

Hizzoner's diatribe
at Atkins diet tribe

Julia, Rene & Demi may follow him, but
Mike has different view of weight-loss guru

By DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF


Mayor Bloomberg puts down the late diet guru while chowing down at Brooklyn firehouse.

Mayor Mike obviously thought the other mike in the room was turned off.
In a rare moment of candor, picked up by a New York 1 News camera, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday described the slip-and-fall death of Dr. Robert Atkins last April as "bull----" - and called the diet guru "fat."

While chowing down on bow-tied pasta and chicken at a Brooklyn firehouse yesterday, Hizzoner opined, "Atkins is dead. I don't believe that bull---- that he dropped dead slipping on a sidewalk. Yeah, right."

"I actually went to his house out in Southampton for a Pataki fund-raiser two years ago," Bloomberg added. "The guy was fat — big guy — but heavy. And the food was inedible. I took one appetizer and I had to spit it into my napkin. It was just terrible."

Atkins, the cardiologist who devised a controversial diet that favors steak and eggs over pasta and other carbohydrates, died at age 72 last year after slipping on the sidewalk outside his E. 55th St. office during a snowstorm.

Bloomberg apparently believed the microphones were turned off yesterday when cameras were let into the dining area of Engine 282, Ladder 148 in Borough Park for what was billed as a photo opportunity.

"It was a joke told at an off-the-record photo op," said Bloomberg spokesman Jordan Barowitz. "We congratulate New York 1 for their willingness to dispense with journalistic ethics in order to run a cheap story."

"The event was on the record," countered New York 1 News Political Director Bob Hardt.

The mayor's comments infuriated Atkins disciples. "We are all baffled and dismayed and would like to believe that this is a joke gone bad," said Dr. Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council.

Originally published on January 21, 2004