Courageous Kat to cowardly lion
HEY, boys and girls. Can you follow the bouncing Kathy? On Sunday, Gov. Hochul delivered a spot-on explanation for New York’s current dilemma — for how it came to be stuffed full of penniless border-hoppers.
The problem, she said, is the border itself: As in, “It’s too open right now.”
Which it obviously is. The consequences — societal, fiscal and cultural — also are obvious, and becoming more so.
But Hochul’s candor — aimed squarely at Washington, and at Joe Biden in particular — clearly has had consequences, too.
Inside the party lines
On Monday, she was warbling a different — far more deferential — tune. To wit:
“With respect to what was said about the border, I have called for a more thoughtful, balanced national immigration — federal — immigration policy.”
Translation: “Oops, I sure stepped in it this time. Please don’t hurt me.”
Ah, but Gov. Flippity-Flop needn’t worry. She’s too compliant to be of concern, especially after re-embracing the orthodoxy — and, in the process, making sure that nobody ever again takes seriously a word she says.
Insiders have always had Hochul’s number: She’s an Erie County ornament elevated by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo because he thought he had political problems in Western New York.
And she has done nothing in the two-plus years since Cuomo’s resignation to dispel that notion.
But what a difference a little spine might have made. Defining moments are rare in public affairs — as are politicians with the courage to embrace them.
It’s not hard to imagine the blowback Hochul’s impertinence generated; the phone calls doubtless came fast and furious — the message being clear: “Nice incumbency you got there, gov. Be a pity if something happened to it.”
To which Hochul might have replied: “Go to hell. This is my state, and I’m going to do what I can — what I must — to protect it.”
What a glorious, liberating moment that would have been — both for Hochul and for the Empire State itself.
New York’s cowards
But she said no such thing. She groveled — and now she, and New York, can expect more of the same: More disrespect, for sure, but also many, many more budget-crushing economic wanderers masquerading as political refugees.
Some 260,000 crossed America’s southern border last month alone; there is no reason to think October will be any different. Or November, or December or well into the new year.
Which, as it happens, is a federal election year — that is, an opportunity for a New York governor with guts to make a significant difference.
Especially since the two most powerful Democrats in Congress — Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries — are from Brooklyn.
Alas. She let the moment pass.
Hochul, of course, is not alone here. She and Mayor Adams — there’s a confederacy of cowards! — clearly will put up with anything.
Hochul is back-peddling as if her life depends on it — which obviously she thinks it does. And Adams says he’s off to Bogota, Colombia, to study up on migrants — as if a visit to the Roosevelt Hotel wouldn’t serve the same purpose.
But the trip, like Hochul’s’ dissembling, is meant to deflect the crisis, not help resolve it.
Business as usual, in other words.
How do they live with themselves?