(Photo: Getty)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg took swipes at his two fellow citywide elected officials earlier today on two unrelated points of criticism they've leveled against his administration, and in subsequent statements, both of them swatted back.

"This is a new level of intellectual dishonesty that we haven't even seen before," Mr. Bloomberg said this morning of Comptroller John Liu's critical report on his administrations revamp of the 911 response system. "This is a contract that was registered with the comptroller's office and finished under the budget approved by his office, and we disallowed a lot of things, and now he's out there screaming."

"It's pretty hard to answer something as stupid as his charge," Mr. Bloomberg said as well.

Mr. Liu, understandably, did not take this criticism sitting down and sent out a statement from his communications director Peter Thorne declaring, "We will chalk up his name calling this morning to low blood sugar.”

“The facts speak for themselves and are clearly spelled out in the 15-month long audit. The City had a chance to respond to the findings but their answers were full of holes and lacked any real substance," Mr. Thorne said. "The Mayor is simply attempting to confuse the public because he doesn’t have a leg to stand on with regard to this issue. The only dishonesty was the City’s failure to acknowledge their shortcomings and failure to accept responsibility for allowing another IT project to spin out of control."

In the same interview, Mr. Bloomberg also lashed out at Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's amicus brief filed against legislation to allow livery cabs to accept street hails in the outer boroughs. Mr. Bloomberg labeled Mr. de Blasio's argument against the bill the "stupidest" and most-nonsensical of the opponents, as Mr. de Blasio supports other legislation that would be illegal under his own arguments against the pro-livery cab legislation, he contended.

“The Mayor is making a bad habit of flinging personal attacks when he doesn't get his way, but it does little good when he's wrong on the facts," Mr. de Blasio responded. "We are confident in the merits of our argument that City Hall set a damaging precedent here--and all for a plan that will hurt thousands of hardworking, middle class New Yorkers who make ends meet by driving a cab."

Bill de Blasio at today's press conference

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio doesn't only oppose Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Taxi and Limousine Commission David Yassky's choice of Nissan for the "Taxi of Tomorrow," but he also thinks Mr. Bloomberg's efforts to expand the fleet and allow outer borough street hails were illegal to begin with. And, at a press conference today, he announced he's filed an amicus with a lawsuit against the new taxi initiatives.

"The actions of the mayor and of Chair Yassky have undermined the city's relationship with Albany and have set a very negative precedence for the future of that relationship," Mr. de Blasio explained. "If we let this legislation by the mayor stand, what it means is that we're making that dependency on Albany even worse. This lawsuit simply says we have to stop the implementation of the legislation in Albany because this process failed to include the City Council."

The legislation in question was passed in the State Legislature because Mr. Bloomberg and other advocates felt the yellow taxi industry was too entrenched in city politics for any effective reform measures to come through the City Council's chambers. Mr. de Blasio, however, was more than skeptical of that line of thought.

"If you start saying that, where do you draw the line?" he asked us when we brought up the argument at today's event. "That you're going to end-run the City Council -- end-run the process -- anytime any mayor says that there's an entrenched interested involved?"

"It's not surprising that Mayor Bloomberg did an end-run around the Democratic process," Mr. de Blasio said to close his arguments with a dig at Mr. Bloomberg. "He did it with term limits, he's done it in many other instances. What he did here was when he knew that some City Council Members would raise objections, he just left the City Council out altogether and set a horrible precedent in the process."

Mr. de Blasio is not the only citywide official to go after Mr. Bloomberg on taxi policy either. Comptroller John Liu has vowed to block the new taxi contract if disability access is not increased as well. Whether any of these efforts will be effective remains to be seen.

"The taxi bill is a very complicated bill that we have been working on for months to try to negotiate," Gov. Cuomo. "There are a number of parties that are involved--the yellow cabs, what they call the black cars, the livery cabs, the radio base operators and we've been trying for months to try to forge a consensus among these groups. The concept behind I think it is right and is bonafide. We want to get more taxi service to the outer boroughs.It would also generate revenue for the city which is very important. But we want to do it in a way that respects everybody's rights."

Among the issues that still need to be resolved, the governor said, are whether or not livery cabs will be able to make airport pickups and questions as to the boundaries that livery cabs will be able to pick up street side fairs.

Also on the table on whether or not the cabs will be handicapped accesible.

"I think it is very important that we have 100 percent access for the disabled in the new yellow cars and access for the disabled on the livery cars to some extent. And that has been difficult for all parties involved," Mr. Cuomo said.

Mayor Bloomberg has resisted further adding more handicapped accesible taxis to the fleet, saying that they are too expensive and are uncomfortable for most riders.

Earlier today the mayor said that time was running short and urged action on the bill quickly.

"It is not really for the mayor to make the changes or not," Gov. Cuomo said. "You have a number of interests here--you have the yellow cabs, you have the livery cabs service, you have the radio operators. And those are really the interested business parties. The legislation would affect those parties. So it's not as much the mayor's opinion or my opinion frankly. It's how do we do this to provide more car service but do it in a way that is respectful to the businesses and the thousands and thousands of people that work in those businesses."

Gov. Cuomo added that he thought the deal would be resolved.

"I am an eternal optimist and that is why I am the governor of the state of New York. And we are still trying to find a resolution."

Before the governor concluded his scrum with reporters, he was interrupted by a supportive heckler who thanked him for visiting Medger Evers College.

"We are going to vote for you when you start running again for re-election," the woman screamed. "WE LOVE YOU."

Mr. Cuomo thanked her before turning to the press and saying, "Why don't you guys ever say that."

"You wouldn't believe us," deadpanned a reporter in response.