The end of the road for Andrew Cuomo
One common trait of the contrite confessor is that they usually only confess to crimes they’ve been accused of. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if, during his tearful mea culpa, Governor Andrew Cuomo had told us there were other victims of his sexual harassments who haven’t yet come forward?
Cuomo could have said something like, “I am currently contacting all the other women I have wronged in this way to apologize to them personally, and am offering to come forward with their names if that assists in their healing.” For some reason, when confessing, the women Cuomo admits he’s wronged just happen to be exactly, precisely the ones who’ve come forward and not one single more. Now isn’t that convenient? Perhaps I’m just not old enough nor cynical enough because I still think, gee, wouldn’t it be nice if for once people like Cuomo could be truly forthcoming instead of drearily and predictably calculating?
But, of course it’s not going to happen because he’s only sorry he was caught. It is now in doubt at this point whether or not he’s sorry for the harm he has done to any of his victims. As I said in my last piece on the governor, when three women accused him of grossly inappropriate behavior (i.e., sexual harassment), “He also needs to be prepared for the fact that if there are other victims then they will probably come forward sooner or later.” Well he didn’t prepare for that and now more have come forward. Three more, to be precise, for a total (as I write this) of six. He can’t say I didn’t warn him.
Now, if you’re the kind of Democrat who would be howling for Cuomo’s blood if he were a Republican and are looking for sinister Republican plots because he’s a Democrat, I probably don’t have anything useful to say to you and you may as well stop reading right now. Morality, not party, is the horse that draws my cart. As I’ve said many times before, I call balls and strikes on everybody with the cold and impartial eye of a fair umpire. I’m not interested in letting anybody off the hook just because they happen to share some of my politics.
I am alarmed at the number of Democrats who tacitly believe (or want to believe) that Cuomo’s victims are lying, despite the fact that he’s confessed to most of what they are alleging! Let me just say this once more. Cuomo confessed. Ergo there is no plot to get three (now six) women to lie about what he did. He confessed. Got it? Is it easy to believe such things as sinister Republican plots in cases like this if you don’t bother to think things through? Yes, I suppose it is.
But first of all, whenever Republicans benefit because a Democrat does something stupid it isn’t always because they had something to do with it, or they somehow miraculously staged the whole thing. That’s an incredibly superstitious way to think. I know that “coincidence” isn’t in the limited vocabulary of the conspiracy theorist, but it really is true that sometimes bad people get lucky. If you’ve been paying attention for the last four months, Republicans have been particularly unlucky of late, so if anything they were due something like this Cuomo conundrum just by the law of averages.
Also, I will be the first to admit that it is true that most scandals are Republican scandals because, let’s face it, if you’re a criminal scumbag the Republican Party is the Party for you. Show me a photo of a group of Confederate flag-waving, Ku Klux Klan hood-wearing, goose-stepping Nazi cretins and I guarantee you that most of them are Republicans and none of them are registered Democrats. Democrats unquestionably hold the moral high ground almost all the time. But that doesn’t mean we’re a bunch of saints.
Considering this sexual harassment scandal and any possible dire revelations that may be revealed about the nursing home scandal, I think it’s time for Governor Cuomo to call it a day and resign. Were I an employer I wouldn’t hire him and I would certainly fire him. We ought to regard disqualification for ordinary employment as a disqualification for high political office, at the very least. The fact that many of us don’t is how we got Trump. Let’s stop making that mistake and start insisting that politicians must pass an even higher test than one we would give to potential employees, not a lower one, or certainly not no test at all.
I know people of honor and decency are out there. Let’s hire them and fire the scum. Who knows, maybe one day the scum will stop applying for the jobs, when they notice that finally, finally we have raised our standards to a sane and acceptable height. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.