Coffey's "them people" a transparent hoax, but then again, so is his career in politics.

Narcissistic personality disorder.

This disorder consists primarily of an inflated sense of self-importance coupled with a lack of empathy for others. Individuals with this disorder display an exaggerated sense of their own importance and abilities and tend to fantasize about them. Such persons also have a sense of entitlement, expecting (and taking for granted) special treatment and concessions from others. Paradoxically, individuals with narcissistic personality disorder are generally very insecure and suffer from low self-esteem.

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Last fall, 1st district councilman Dan “Wizard of Westside” Coffey became frustrated (default?) during council deliberations on redistricting. He gestured frantically to no one in particular, and then uttered the unintentionally revealing words for which he’ll always be remembered:

“Them people.”

For CM Coffey, it’s always been them people, and it will always be them people. Them people who know more, them people who are educated, them people who are capable, them people who achieve, them people who build, not destroy – forever and always, it’s them people who populate the daily, all-encompassing conspiracy theory that impels and misinforms congenital council obstructionists like Coffey and his generally reliable council lapdog, Steve Price, both of whom regularly seize upon non-existent bogey men to deprive their own districts of a future.

Monday’s city council meeting featured another long-winded display of Coffey’s favorite legislative tactic: Eternally lacking gravitas, and possessing no viable alternative to whatever it is that he opposes (this time), he substitutes seemingly endless verbiage in what amounts to a twice-monthly filibuster of anything approximating forward movement, whether in terms of council business or something as simple as turing the pages of the calendar.

Know that I hesitate to use the word filibuster because it contains four syllables and is thus banned in Coffey’s fiefdom of Westendia, but that’s what the numbing speeches amount to, and it is during these rambling and circular ejaculations of self-serving oratory that observers can detect the patented Coffey method, which might be described as improvisational fumbling for a tag line, a phrase he can repeat over and over in the absence of content, both to convince himself of its veracity and to attract the attention of his ever-shrinking band of like-minded, underachieving confederates.

Why the council president permits Coffey’s grandstanding is another matter for another day. Am I exaggerating the councilman’s inflated sense of self-importance? Come to a meeting, and you can be the judge.

On Monday night, Coffey seized upon the notion that the administration’s stated aim of converting Spring Street to two-way traffic provides the most convenient pretext for interjecting himself into a topic he doesn’t understand, squeeze a few additional weeks of enmity toward human progress during the 20th-century, and rally his rag-tag titterheads for another assault on them people.

Call it the Birdseye Gambit.

It doesn’t require a Bazooka Joe degree in cause ‘n’ effect to see which way Coffey’s wind is blowing, so don’t expect him to discuss anything as mundane as the merits of the actual proposal, now seized upon as sole talking point by other dues-paying members of the motley troupe that look to Coffey for wisdom in the same way that primitive peoples venerate empty Coca-Cola bottles that unexpectedly fall from the sky.

Just remember: I’m them people, and I’m for it … so, naturally, genetically, Dan Coffey’s against it, because a city with greater numbers of them people occupying positions of influence poses a mortal threat to his continued ability to wield influence wildly out of proportion to his abilities.

Anyone seen my broom and dustpan? It's time for a good sweeping.