Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Andrew Cuomo was the first sitting politician to receive an Emmy, awarded just last November. Now we learn that the “Love Gov,” as he once dubbed himself — whose “Founder’s Award” recognizes an individual who “crosses cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity” — crossed some other boundaries and touched a lot more than that.
New York’s governor won’t be winning an Emmy for his more recent acting performances, however, not if the groveling, almost four-minute apology he offered Wednesday is any indication. The act was in response, of course, to the sexual-harassment allegations against him, which you can read about here and here. But the Machiavellian mea culpa won’t help him, say some observers, and not just because his pretense at getting choked up was as fake as his brother’s news network.
As commentator Andrea Widburg points out, Cuomo’s situation reflects Joe Biden’s. Biden was accused of sexual misconduct during the presidential campaign, also issued an apology and, in his case, rode out the storm.
Another similarity is that Cuomo’s apology (below) mirrored Biden’s. First, the Love Gov “denied it [the harassment] completely,” writes Widburg. “Then he said that, if he did it, he didn’t mean to do it. And then he lied outright, saying he never touched anyone inappropriately ‘and never knew at the time I was making anyone feel uncomfortable.’”
For the record, here’s Biden’s apology from 2019:
Also for the record, the accusations against Biden are far more serious, with one former Senate staffer accusing him of having forcibly digitally penetrated her in 1993. Yet he survived. And Cuomo “clearly hopes that, like Joe Biden, he can make everything go away by saying he didn’t mean to upset anybody,” Widburg also states. “My bet is that he’s wrong and that he’ll be out of office soon.”
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For sure is that the two men are situated quite differently. Taking down Biden in the midst of a presidential campaign could have helped the Republicans and gotten President Trump reelected, the thinking surely went.
Yet while New York isn’t as far gone as California, it essentially is a one-party state, with the Democrats controlling the governorship and entire legislature. Thus, if Cuomo is toppled, he’ll not only be replaced by another Democrat, but the party will almost assuredly win the next gubernatorial election.
Remember, too, that politicians always vie for power. Yet with New York Democrats not having to worry much about the GOP, they only have to vie with each other — and some certainly want Cuomo’s position.
Perhaps this is why the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, revealed the governor’s nursing-home lies in January; she also now has vowed to launch a sexual-harassment investigation into Cuomo.
Then there’s how the Love Gov hasn’t exactly showered fellow New York Democrats with love. In fact, after Ron Kim, a Democratic assemblyman from Queens, said that Cuomo had made a threatening, gangster-like phone call to him, other such stories surfaced. Just consider the tweet below from New York State Democrat assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou.
Then there’s this:
And this, from New York state senator Alessandra Biaggi:
So aside from being corrupt, Cuomo wasn’t even smart enough to make and keep friends on his way up, so he now only has enemies on his way down. Yet so many fellow Democrats wanting his scalp raises an interesting point:
Cuomo has killed thousands of nursing-home residents via what some might call criminal negligence. So why is he being targeted with the current sexual-misconduct allegations, which pale in comparison?
The answer is fairly obvious. Commentator “John Nolte suspects — and Thomas Lifson agrees — that Cuomo is the patsy: by keeping the focus on him and his sexual misconduct, the Democrats hope to avoid opening the Pandora’s box attendant on governors seeding nursing homes with COVID,” writes Widburg.
“After all, governors in Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, and California (all Democrats) did the same thing. If they can make Cuomo the sacrificial lamb whose sexual misconduct sucks all the energy out of the manslaughter allegations, that preserves the other governors,” she continues.
For sure. Setting the precedent of ousting a governor based on deadly nursing-home policy could trigger a domino effect; moreover, it could bring down governors in states where Republicans could actually seize the reins (e.g., Michigan).
What’s more, liberals far and wide are complicit here. After all, the mainstream media and other Democrat politicians could perhaps have saved some lives if, instead of using the COVID-19 situation deceitfully to hurt Trump, they’d focused attention on the coronavirus fiasco’s true villains. But toppling Trump was more important than saving seniors.
Returning to Cuomo’s Emmy, I can’t resist relating a comment made by Bruce Paisner, the president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the entity granting such awards.
“The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure,” he said in a November statement announcing the decision to give Cuomo the award. “People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.”
My, that aged well. But, hey, in fairness, Cuomo sure did have the failure part down pat.
