BULLY DONE IN BY HIMSELF
THUS departs Andrew Mark Cuomo, and New York’s third consecutive gubernatorial calamity comes to an end. There was an accident bookended by two sociopaths, and the obvious lesson is that the Empire State needs to take more care selecting its leaders.
There was Eliot Spitzer, a ravening lunatic with an appetite for hired women. Then there was David Paterson, a thoroughly decent fellow who was overmatched from Day One. And finally, there was Cuomo, a bully with no moral compass, no strategic vision and no self-control.
The combination was lethal, and in 14 days he will be history.
So say hello to Kathy Hochul of Erie County; she’s a woman of no discernable personal flaws, but not a lot of relevant experience, either. She is, frankly, swimming in deep water surrounded by predators — so the drama is far from over.
Cuomo, of course, was about nothing if not drama. His thundering, anger-infused annual messages to the Legislature, along with his truculent public outbursts on controversial policy matters, made it clear that there was little room for compromise or accommodation in his governing style. Even mild dissent was marked as disloyalty, and treated as such.
There was “no place in New York” for principled conservatives, he once declared — a pro-life position or respect for the Second Amendment was “extremist,” he said. But progressive Democrats fared little better: Just ask the folks who opposed his Amazon initiative in Queens — or, more recently, countered his coronavirus nursing home dissembling with facts.
And while governors and New York City mayors have always been ex officio rivals, Cuomo’s treatment of Bill de Blasio simply has been sadistic (not that Hizzoner hasn’t earned a full ration of contempt, of course).
Cuomo’s shoot-the-wounded approach to governance was apparent as early as 1983, when he arrived in Albany as his father Mario’s main muscle — and the resentments began to accumulate.
Biographer Michael Shnayerson in 2015 described the younger Cuomo as “his father’s all-knowing, all-purpose henchman . . . his father’s heavy,” adding: “He was a nasty piece of work . . . You do not want him mad at you. He takes no prisoners.”
But while Mario brought subtlety to governance, his son never even tried; instead, rancor ruled. So while Andrew never lacked for allies in New York’s thoroughly transactional political environment, he had few, if any, reliable friends.
Indeed, the fate of the one person who might have qualified as a friend, former family retainer Joseph Percoco, points straight to another prominent characteristic of the Andrew Cuomo years: a persistent odor of corruption.
Percoco, Andrew’s own all-purpose henchman, fell afoul of former US Attorney Preet Bharara’s multiple investigations of Cuomo administration economic development programs and is doing time in federal prison after having been abandoned by his principal.
All in all, then, it’s no surprise that Cuomo’s good-will reservoir ran dry early on — which in turn helps explain the surprised enthusiasm that New Yorkers had for the governor’s upbeat, focused and sometimes humorous pandemic briefings. Could it be, after all, that there was an empathetic human being lurking behind that creased and glowering face?
Non-New Yorkers also found the presentations fascinating — as did an Emmy Award committee (although its judgment may have been influenced by the hundreds of millions of dollars in entertainment-industry tax credits engineered by Cuomo).
Alas, in the end there was nothing there. Decades of accumulated enmity were pressing too heavily.
Thus when Attorney General Letitia James made it clear that his COVID briefings largely had been camouflage for disastrous pandemic policies — which in turn had degenerated into coverup — the ball began to roll.
And when James detailed how the 63-yearold governor routinely harassed 11 much younger women — including a state trooper
assigned to his security detail — there was no buffering the impact.
Even President Biden called for his resignation. Bullying seemed no longer to work. Legislative leaders turned their backs. Institutional Albany repaid decades of gubernatorial strong-arming with silence.
Yes, he pledged loudly never to quit — always a sign that exit velocity is approaching — but he had no escape route.
Now he’s gone — a relatively young man, with plenty of time to ponder the dishonor he brought to his office. Will he ever understand that the problem was Andrew all along?
So the very best to Gov. Hochul. The challenge she faces is daunting — but New York has seen the movie before; here’s hoping she can engineer a happier ending this time.