Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s media company, long known for its coverage of the financial world, is throwing its hat in the crowded ring of opinion journalism — this week launching Bloomberg View. And the Duke of New York’s deep pockets have afforded a starting lineup that includes many marquee names, including Michael Kinsley, Jamie Rubin, Jonathan Alter, Margaret Carlson, Stephen Carter, Noah Feldman, Ed Glaeser, Jeffrey Goldberg, Al Hunt, Ezra Klein, Peter Orszag, Virginia Postrel, and Amity Shales.

It’s hard to glean much from the Bloomberg editorial board’s first offering, which shuns “philosophy” in favor of vague promises to “see the world clearly” from a vantage “committed to transparency and tolerance, to nonpartisanship and intellectual honesty, to free markets and data-driven solutions to national and international problems.”  But the personalities involved —  and the promise to dispose of first principles in favor of “data-driven solutions” and “transparency” — suggest some kind of cross between the Neo-Victorian optimism of the Economist and the liberal internationalism of The New Republic.

If the cocktail party liberalism frequently on offer over at Tina Brown’s Daily Beast/Newsweek isn’t sober enough for you, Bloomberg View might just be your speed.  Who needs all those oversaturated “top 10” slide shows? Bring on the charts and data regressions!