Following New York Attorney General Letitia James’ long awaited but unsurprising report, Democrats across the nation are abandoning Governor Andrew Cuomo’s listing ship.
“Lamont
joins other governors calling for Cuomo to resign after harassment finding,” a Hearst headline screams. Lamont was not
alone in abandoning the sinking ship. Democrat notables who called for Cuomo to
resign included “Gov. Dan McKee of Rhode Island, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey
and Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania,” and Democrat heavyweights Speaker of the
U.S. House Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader in the Senate Chuck Schumer, and
President Joe Biden, who was accused several months ago by a sexual assault victim
of having digitally
raped her.
Always a joiner, Gov.
Ned Lamont, we are told, “joined three other Northeast governors in calling
for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign Tuesday evening, hours after he
[Lamont] told reporters he wanted a day to react to a report that found Cuomo
sexually harassed 11 women.”
Lamont has been
raked over the coals for two inconvenient political postures or impostures, as
the case may be: 1) having been late to the hanging, and 2) having, under
considerable pressure, betrayed a friendly political associate.
Grown up readers fully
understand there are no friends in politics. “If you want a friend in
Washington DC,” President Harry Truman once said, “get a dog.”
The political stage,
instead, is littered with working associates, and Lamont, early in his
administration, came very close to the Cuomo flame. For months during the Wuhan
pandemic, Lamont was content to copy Cuomo’s policies, save one. As far as we
know – in the absence of a General Assembly hearing on the matter, the
qualifier is necessary – Lamont, unlike Cuomo, one of New York’s most significant
Coronavirus spreaders, did not transfer from hospitals to care facilities,
elderly voters stricken with Coronavirus.
James’ “scathing
report” was not at all ambiguous and, replete with salacious details, “unwanted
groping, kissing, hugging and making inappropriate comments,” provided little
wiggle room for Cuomo. But wiggle he has.
James wrote in the
report, “These interviews and pieces of evidence revealed a deeply disturbing
yet clear picture: Gov. Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state
employees in violation of federal and state laws.”
Whispers on
impeachment have now broken into screams and yells. Given all the political
daggers now dangling from his body, front and back, Cuomo certainly would be
justified in calling out with his last political breath, “Et tu Biden,
Pelosi, Schumer… Lamont.”
Prior to the
release of the James report, Lamont had begged off denouncing his fishing buddy.
The letter to which Lamont affixed his name following release of the report,
very short and lacking in granular detail, professed appallment: “We are
appalled at the findings of the independent investigation by the New York
Attorney General,” and proffered a much bandied about amelioration, “Governor
Cuomo should resign from office.”
Cuomo’s media
antagonist, the New
York Post, was afire
with indignation and condemnation and salacious details drawn from the James
report, all of which, in the not yet elapsed “#Me Too” era, easily might be fashioned
into a political garrote. By insisting upon waiting for completion of the five
month James investigation, Lamont was antagonizing Lewis Carroll’s Queen of
Hearts. “Sentence first,” said the imperious Queen to Alice, “verdict afterwards.”
Following release
of the James report, Director of the Marist Poll Dr. Lee M. Miringoff said, “The
court of public opinion believes the allegations against Governor Cuomo warrant
his removal from office” by means of impeachment, if necessary. “If he does not
resign, nearly six in ten New Yorkers believe he should be impeached. Even if
he survives this scandal, his reelection prospects are rock bottom with even
his Democratic base deserting him.”
A scant 32 percent
of New York residents maintain that Cuomo should serve out his term, according
to the poll.
Even in the pit of
Hell one is inclined to draw a suitable moral from human depravity. A proper
moral here might be: Stupidity corrupts, and absolute stupidity corrupts absolutely.
And it is, most often in politics, pride and the false flattery of one’s political
“friends” that bring from top to bottom once haloed politicians.
Crowded at the
confusing top, one comes to one’s senses, finally, at the lonesome bottom.
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