Albany’s Hypocrites
If you wonder how Gov. Cuomo can possibly escape removal from office and perhaps even win re-election next year, consider Assemblywoman Diana Richardson (D-B’klyn). Richardson showed up at Cuomo’s “We’re all really anti-crime” Brooklyn press conference on Wednesday and was all lovey-dovey (literally, they exchanged kisses afterward and the gov told her, “I love you”) — though she announced back in March that he was no longer “entitled to remain” in office since he’d “irreparably damaged his trustworthiness and ability to lead” in his various #MeToo scandals, which include convincing allegations that he had his minions harass his accusers.
Nor has she retracted that statement, issued jointly with state Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-B’klyn), who was also at the love-in (albeit with no kisses).
Questioned about the issue, she told The Post’s Julia Marsh, “I’m here today with the governor because politics is politics, business is business.” And: “At the end of the day, we have a job to do.”
She then declared the question itself “inappropriate for the topic of this press conference,” insisting, “We are in a state of emergency,” and “This is not the time for us to be in our emotions and people’s personal endeavors. This is the time to be solutionoriented and focused.”
Finally, “We don’t want divisive questions.” Presumably, it was that Don’t you dare question our sincerity slapdown that earned the gov’s love: He hates it when his own fraudulent posturing gets called out, too.
First off: The “job to do” excuse would carry more weight if this were a legislative effort, not a grandstanding press conference complete with smooches.
Second: Richardson voted for the no-bail bill and other criminal-justice “reforms” that Cuomo signed into law. Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams (along with Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, progressive Albany DA David Soares and a host of others) rightly points out these terrible laws play a critical role in the gun-violence “emergency” that the presser was supposedly about.
Yet Richardson, Cuomo and the rest don’t want to fix those reforms. Instead, they’re pitching a bunch of social-spending hokum (outlays that would likely enrich nonprofits many of these pols are allied with). There was nothing that will stop the gang violence happening now, like the shootings that left a 13-year-old black teenager dead this week.
The whole press conference was about covering the politicians’ butts by making them seem to care about the deadly violence that’s outraged the public. It was all politics, not real business.
This was the ultimate display of Albany hypocrisy: decrying the violence she helped create, kissing the man she accused of being a sexual harasser.
As we’ve said before, the Assembly should’ve impeached Cuomo months ago over his administration’s admitted law-breaking — its months-long coverup (with multiple flagrant violations of the Freedom of Information Law) of the true COVID nursing-home death toll while the gov was nabbing his $5 million book deal.
But Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is drawing out the process, abetting Cuomo’s bid to outlast the scandal — which leaves the gov desperate to keep the speaker happy and so determined not to fix those disastrous “reforms.”
Richardson, and every other Assembly Democrat, is complicit in that, too.
All of which makes them furious indeed at anyone who asks “divisive questions.”