Emperor Andrew I, the Petulant, who was actually showing signs of surviving his Triple-Lindy of scandals, resigned yesterday. The knockout punch was the release of New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ 168 page report that provided credible evidence that Cuomo engaged in sexual harassment, including inappropriate and potentially litigable touching, of 11 women.
After a week of near-universal clamor for his resignation, the acceleration of impeachment proceedings, and the rats-from-a-ship departure of members of his inner circle, he finally reached the fifth stage of grief, and accepted the inevitable.
That he was defenestrated for the harassment, rather than the thousands of nursing home deaths his astoundingly wrong directive caused, or for their coverup, or for the basket of improprieties surrounding his $5.1M book deal, is both disappointing and emblematic of our current culture. Still, it’s some justice, and if the New York legislature proceeds with impeachment (wherein the rest might be illuminated), there’ll be more. I’m not holding my breath, though, because the Democrats’ next order of business is to put this mess in the rear view mirror as fast as they can.
Sure enough, the spin machine spooled up faster than an F-35 engine. All across the political landscape, the message is “See how awesome the Democrats are!? We got rid of our perv!!” This bleating was joined by some Never-Trumpers on the Right, because even today, everything remains about the Untethered Orange Id (by design – for the rage-addicts, he remains the purest Fentanyl hot shot available). Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh has also been folded into this posture, no matter that those allegations were crumbling apart even as they were being presented.
This is farcical. I’m not going to defend the peripatetic political showman (h/t The Fiscal Times), because this assertion of nobility and propriety is utter nonsense, even given the whataboutism.
Cuomo was being defended left, right, up, and down by his party members and partisan voters until the dam broke and they couldn’t maintain the facade. The nursing home scandal was glaringly obvious months ago, but his party-mates in the legislature were engaged in Kabuki rather than investigation. A legion of “Cuomosexuals” emerged to support him and deride his accusers. With just a couple exceptions, the #MeToo folks were nowhere to be found. The press, the investigators, and his office coordinated to spin the stories to advantage. A hindsight-clarified review of the timelines shows us how the Left blindered itself to reality, because one of “theirs” gave such good press conference that it made them swoon orgiastically. To suggest that the Left is the party of sexual propriety based on Cuomo’s resignation would be guffaw-inducing were it not so maddening.
Here’s the reality. Politicians (not all of them, I’m obligated to say) throughout history have leveraged their positions of power for (among many other things) sexual gratification. It’s a tale as old as time, and it knows no party affiliation. Each team likes to think the other team is worse, but what actually happens when such are exposed is “can we spin this away?”
In this case, they couldn’t. I do believe that James sees her political career as going through the Governor’s Mansion in Albany, but a political motivation in this matter doesn’t translate to lies or fabrication – the evidence (yes, Cuomo hasn’t had his day in court, but we are entitled to our 168-page-informed opinions) looks quite damning.
As for Cuomo himself? Arrogant and narcissistic to the end. His resignation speech was breathtaking.
In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate. And I should have, no excuses.
Holy mother-of-pearl!
This is the old-codger defense. “I’m not a racist, the world has simply gotten too sensitive.” “I’m just a touchy-feely guy who hasn’t kept up with the new rules.”
In a just world (again… who am I kidding?), this non-apology would motivate the legislators running the impeachment to continue their process, to expose it all, to fumigate the Governor’s Mansion. Not just about the harassment, but about the nursing home directive, the deaths, the coverup, the book deal… all of it. Instead, we’re going to get chest-thumping about how they cleaned out an infestation because they’re the Good Guys. That Governor Perv, Jr. (see: Eliot Spitzer) could not be saved was the only reason they abandoned him, but they’ll never cop to that.
This is politics, after all. Get handed a bag of rancid lemons, you still gotta make lemonade.
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