During the rough-and-tumble of his first appearance in a Democratic presidential debate Wednesday night in Las Vegas, after his rivals for the nomination had piled on over his support for racist “stop-and-frisk” policing while he was mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg responded, “I’ve sat, I’ve apologized, I’ve asked for forgiveness. But the bottom line is we stopped too many people … “

Bloomberg made it sound as though other Democrats are pummeling him for a single sin, or lapse in judgement–as though, other than stop-and-frisk, he’s been a paragon of progressive ideals, and now everyone just needs to get over it.

Because stop-and-frisk probably won’t be Bloomberg’s only need for forgiveness–rather just the first in what could be a long line of contrition.

The Big Apple billionaire’s sexist attitudes and talk seem like the next of his less-than-progressive sensibilities that he’s going to have to grapple with.

On the stage in Las Vegas, Bloomberg competitor Elizabeth Warren described him as “a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians,” a reference to quotes attributed to him in a booklet written by a former employee, which Bloomberg disputes. 

That he disputes those details obviously doesn’t carry much weight with voters, since when Warren told Bloomberg to release the women with whom he’s entered into non-disclosure agreements as part of legal arrangements, he replied, “We’re not going to end these agreements because they were made consensually,” to boos from the crowd.

Obviously, Bloomberg’s position on those non-disclosure agreements won’t hold water for long, and up he will go with tens of millions of dollars’ worth of glossy advertising to reintroduce Bloomberg as a “friend of women.”

Bloomberg’s need for forgiveness probably won’t end there, as there’s the recently uncovered bigotry toward the LGBT community, specifically transgender women.

A newly uncovered video shows Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg in 2019 describing transgender people as “he, she, or it” and “some guy in a dress” who enters girls locker rooms — perpetuating the worst stereotypes of transgender women.

I can only imagine the onslaught of TV advertising Bloomberg’s people will come up with to respond to that.

No, Mr. Bloomberg, you’ll be asking for forgiveness for a while longer, it seems.

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