The fall of Andrew Cuomo abounds with irony. Let us count the ways.
It’s ironic that Cuomo’s downfall should follow so shortly after his lionization by the media, as
well as by numerous politicians, entertainers, and others wrapped up in the cult of Cuomosexuality. Just
a year ago he was winning praise for his daily, lengthy, detailed, and seemingly accurate and candid
televised briefings on the pandemic and how he was fighting it. He was awarded an Emmy for his
performances. He was seen as the anti-Trump, as well as a possible replacement for Joe Biden as the
Democratic presidential nominee. He inked a multi-million dollar deal which produced a book detailing
his leadership during the pandemic. Now the cheering’s stopped, to put it mildly.
It’s ironic that Cuomo’s downfall should be caused by numerous credible charges of sexual
harassment. After all, Cuomo had ordered the World Trade Center to be bathed in pink light to
celebrate the New York state legislature’s expansion, with his enthusiastic backing, of abortion rights.
He signed into law a bill to lengthen the statute of limitations period for women wanting to use the law
to fight back against alleged instances of sexual harassment. He took Joe Biden’s view that women’s
complaints of sexual harassment should always be believed (at least when made against Republican
men). To identify with feminism he seemingly did everything but undergo a sex change operation
himself. Yet now he’s been done in by a report written under the supervision of New York’s female
attorney general.
The report itself is ironic, as is Cuomo’s reaction to it. Heretofore Cuomo had not expressed any
need for reports, and, indeed, they’re not necessary if one is to always believe the female accuser
anyway. Yet he demanded, and got, for himself what he might well have denied to others–a report on
his own alleged misconduct. Questions can be raised about the report’s credibility. Attorney General
Letitia James has stated she shares the Biden-Cuomo mandate to “believe the women, period.”
Moreover, she’s politically ambitious and was seen as a potential rival to Cuomo. One wonders how her
prejudices and ambitions shaped the report’s contents. Yet Cuomo, while explicitly challenging its
conclusions, is implicitly accepting them by resigning.
One conclusion of the report is especially ironic, i. e., that Cuomo had female enablers of his
alleged misconduct as well as female accusers. Perhaps this should not have been too unexpected. Bill
Clinton’s defenders included Hillary, Gloria Steinem, and the National Organization for Women. Harvey
Weinstein is alleged to have had female assistants lure young women to his places of, uh, “work” by
attending the first part of his meetings with his intended prey and then leaving when Harvey really
wanted to get down to “business.” In Cuomo’s case, his top administrative aide, Melissa DeRosa, not
only helped coordinate efforts to discredit his accusers but she and Cuomo also consulted on strategy
with a top female official of the Time’s Up movement, which emerged allegedly to help fight sexual
harassment following the first systematic investigations of Harvey Weinstein in 2017.
One of the greatest, if least obvious, ironies, is that the proximate cause of Cuomo’s resignation-
-his reported treatment of women, however disgusting it may have been–may pale in comparison to
other aspects of his conduct should additional allegations be true. He is alleged to have helped cause
the otherwise preventable deaths of up to 15,000 patients in government-run nursing homes by
ordering the transfer of 9000 covid-19 patients to the nursing homes from hospitals in order to free up
hospital beds for additional patients. Moreover, DeRosa admitted to New York Democratic Party
operatives that she deliberately underreported the number of nursing home deaths to help thwart a
federal criminal investigation into state nursing home operations in New York and other states. Was this underreporting a criminal act? Did the alleged falsification of casualty records also contribute to the
initial success of Cuomo’s book by making his achievements more impressive than they really were?
Attorney General James’s report has launched various criminal investigations into Cuomo’s
alleged sexual harassment, and the federal probe into nursing home deaths is proceeding even as the
New York state legislature launches its own probes. Cuomo is discovering that while his time his
governorship is ending, his legal problems are only just beginning.
How ironic.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton since 1987. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present). He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club, and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole
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