Cuomo doesn’t feel nearly ‘bad’ enough
Coverup of New York nursing home deaths
If you are frustrated by the partisan and ideological divisions the COVID-19 pandemic has been exacerbating, I suggest you express a little gratitude to New york State Gov. Andrew Cuomo. by displaying staggeringly awful judgment in handling COVID deaths in New york nursing homes, Cuomo has managed the near-impossible feat of uniting nearly everyone — left and right, democrat and republican — against him. And to be clear, “awful judgment” is simply the politest way I can think of to accurately characterize Cuomo’s behaviour without forcing my editors to spend hours on the phone getting this column “lawyered” before publication to avoid the potential of libel notices.
regularly with scandals, the coverup ends up being worse than the wrongdoing. but I think that in the case of the New york nursing homes, it might be a tie. And I am far from alone in viewing both the initial mistakes and the subsequent attempted whitewashing as painfully damaging.
The FBI and the u.s. attorney in brooklyn are investigating the Cuomo administration, which has, in the past few weeks, adjusted the number of long-term care residents it says died of COVID from 8,500 to 15,000. Not exactly a rounding error. As daniel Griffin, a physician-scientist who has been on the front lines of the COVID fight in New york from the beginning, recently Tweeted, “without this information in real time the urgency that could have prevented these deaths was not there.”
The loss of life amongst an especially vulnerable population is heartbreaking; Cuomo’s alleged threats to colleagues to put a good spin on the tragedy is maddening.
democratic New york Assemblyman ron Kim told CNN, “Gov. Cuomo called me directly on Thursday to threaten my career if I did not cover up for Melissa and what she said.” Melissa is Melissa derosa, a senior Cuomo aide who told state legislators that New york purposely put off sharing the true number of dead nursing home residents because they were worried about being investigated by the department of Justice.
The Cuomo camp has tried to paint Kim’s allegations of bullying as being nothing more than sour grapes — the result of what Cuomo called, in a press conference, “a long and hostile relationship” between Kim and Cuomo’s office. but CNN cited three other democratic New york legislators who, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the news outlet that “they were aware of outreach from the governor in which he clearly suggested or explicitly threatened political retaliation if they did not stand by him.”
It does not speak well of Cuomo that people do not seem surprised by these accounts of what should, by all rights, be considered shocking behaviour from a governor.
New york City Mayor bill de blasio called the alleged domineering calls “classic Andrew Cuomo,” explaining that there is nothing new about the idea that Cuomo would try to browbeat colleagues into covering for him or making him look good.
“The threats, the belittling, the demand that someone change their statement right that moment,” de blasio said, in an interview with MSNBC, “many, many times I’ve heard that and I know a lot of other people in this state have heard that.”
The worst part is that it remains unclear, even now, that Cuomo understands the gravity of his sins and omissions, an instinct for self-preservation far more evident than any sense of remorse.
“My administration created the (information) void, and that I feel bad about,” Cuomo said during a COVID briefing Wednesday. “Not
alleged threats to ... put a good spin on the tragedy is maddening.
illegal, not unethical, but just failed people in the moment.” Would those words offer any comfort to someone who lost a family member in a New york nursing home to COVID? describing what was at best massive ineptitude, but more likely incompetence compounded by cold and calculating self-regard, as a momentary failure? “I’m sorry,” would have been a better start.
The best that can be said for Cuomo is that he has created rare unity amongst members of the ideological left and right, his dangerous arrogance being one thing they can agree on. While a group of nine federal republican Senators is calling for a Justice department probe into Cuomo’s actions, democrats in New york State are working on trying to strip the governor of his emergency powers. While Cuomo continues to insist that “everything that could have been done was done,” he may be the only politician of any stripe who still thinks so. He is certainly the only one unfeeling enough to keep saying so.