La Guardia’s maxim spoke to attention to basics: While there necessarily must be partisanship in government, it rarely has much to do with the delivery of essential services. Keep the fundamentals under control and folks will overlook a lot.

But when a mayoralty comes to be defined by fanciful notions — political labels, bike paths, french fries and other irrelevancies — forgiveness following catastrophe will be a long time coming.

Especially when the mayor’s reaction to the debacle ranges from surly condescension to bewildered resentment to transparently feigned contrition…

In Mike’s World, a fired commissioner would be a public confession that the mayor him self has failed. But last week’s mess owns Mike Bloomberg. The label “failure” is stamped squarely in the middle of his forehead. The fact that Manhattan bike lanes had been hand shoveled clear to the pavement before a lot of outerborough avenues had seen their first plow demonstrates yet again that Bloomberg has lost interest in core mayoral duties — as if more evidence is necessary.