Apparently, he was also working on some book deal and didn’t want (or his aides didn’t want?) bad COVID numbers to blow it.
I’m not excusing his lies, of course, just providing another possible motivation.
The sixth allegation is more serious than the previous ones:
A female aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo alleges he aggressively groped her in a sexually charged manner after she had been summoned to the Executive Mansion late last year, according to a person with direct knowledge of the woman’s claims.
The staff member, whose identity is being withheld by the Times Union, had been called to the mansion under the apparent pretext of having her assist the governor with a minor technical issue involving his mobile phone. They were [alone in Cuomo’s private residence] on the second floor when he closed the door and allegedly reached under her blouse and began to fondle her, according to the source.
Ew. What the fuck.
I gave Bill Cosby the benefit of the doubt for the first two, three, five, or eight accusers, but by the time it reached a few dozen … I had to admit the likelihood that he was a predatory rapist.
[only slightly tongue-in-cheek]
The Democrats in the NY State Assembly are opening up an impeachment query. It looks like it’s focusing on the sexual harassment charges. That’s in addition to the independent investigation.
Good. While I would prefer that Cuomo had not engaged in cover-ups and harassment and possibly outright assault, the silver lining of this situation is that it’s allowing Democrats to give an object lesson to Republicans in the proper way to respond to credible allegations of serious misbehavior by a leader in one’s own party.
Republicans who try to excuse their disgraceful shielding of Trump from the consequences of his actions by whining that Democrats were just mounting a partisan attack that they wouldn’t have pursued in the case of a Democrat are getting a direct counterexample staring them right in the face.
And after cheering Cuomo’s demise, Republicans will go right back to protecting their own when a scandal hits them, hypocrisy be damned!
Yes and yes to both of these posts.
Agreed. Getting suboptimal results in the handling of a shitstorm is expected. Covering it up so that your projected image of competence is protected, for political gain, cannot be accepted.
And if at the same time you are incurring in some serious personal impropriety…
Suboptimal? Forcing nursing homes to take covid patients is not suboptimal. It’s dangerously stupid. Again, we knew before the 1st case hit the US that it was killing the elderly. I don’t understand the narrative that nobody knew what to do early on. The majority of Governors chose not to do this.
What actions did Cuomo engage in that warrants the praise he’s been given? He asked for ventilators, emergency medical facilities, boats, and he got them. He eventually got around to cleaning the subways in May when deaths were peaking. I’m not aware of anything particularly insightful that he did. Writing a book about it just seems self serving.
I suppose it may be related to:
Basically he was being celebrated under the “low bar for comparison” scenario, for acting closer to what is expected of someone in that position in emergency while others were pretending it wasn’t that bad or just wasn’t happening or that the worst thing was having to close during high season.
But, I will say now with the benefit of hindsight, they may be saying “hey, man, at the time we appreciated that you were doing a vastly better job than You-Know-Who in filling the “leader doing and saying what we crave to see a leader doing and saying” role in the crisis, but you had to fuck it up didn’t ya?”
Yes, that’s the narrative, but it’s also a media driven narrative and I’m asking for some quantitative basis for it.
On the federal side we have the fastest development of a vaccine in history. We also have a ramp up of ventilators using the war powers act to the point we exported them. While this was going on there were politicians in NY who actively promoted public participation in the Chinese Lunar festivities in total disregard of the the virus.
In the beginning of March Cuomo announced with great confidence that NY had the best health-care system in the world, and would leverage that system to help contain any potential spread of the novel coronavirus.
He talked a good game but I haven’t seen any actions that lived up to the Emmy he got.
I’ll tell you what. I’ll take it as a given that Cuomo is the worst fuckup of a governor, much worse than the governor of South Dakota who encouraged the motorcycle rally, promptly moving North and South Dakota right to the top of the list, much worse than the governors who refused to shut down, even after seeing the disaster happening on the East Coast, much worse than the governors who overrode local mask and shutdown orders. He’s the absolute shittiest governor who ever shat when it came to handling the early days of the COVID crisis. No one is worse.
I’ll also grant that the Federal response was absolutely perfect in every way, and no one could have done a better job than handling the pandemic than Trump. I’ll grant that he essentially save this country from becoming a barren wasteland.
Happy?
None of that is on-topic for this thread, because Cuomo is not in trouble for how he handled the nursing home crisis. He’s in trouble for lying about it.
So, I’m asking again to please, please stop bringing it up.
Anyone know if New York Magazine has traditionally been hostile to Cuomo? An article there:
Mod note: In what way is this in any way relevant to the reasons Cuomo is in trouble, which let me remind you, are his propensity to grope and also lying about deaths in long-term care facilities.
You want to debate Cuomo’s policies vs. Trump’s, open a thread on the subject.
Mod note:
Please stop junior modding. Yes, he changed the subject, but the correct action is to flag it and let us take action.
Well here’s the thing, the criticism isn’t hindsight. His nursing home policy was brought up early on. I’ve had this conversation with people in my own state who praised him and received the same answer I’ve gotten in this thread. Nobody seems to know what he’s actually done that justified the praise and he’s been forgiven for not knowing the virus kills the elderly.
This criticism has come from people within his state and from within his party and he’s personally threatened members of his party over it. The idea that it’s politically driven is wrong. He didn’t just lie, he lied about the number of people who DIED as a result of his actions. There’s no hindsight involved in this. It was a bad decision on his part and he tried to withhold evidence showing this.
Here’s an article from PBS that discusses my point.
- Amna Nawaz:
It’s worth reminding people, early in the pandemic, New York was the nation’s epicenter when it came to the pandemic. We saw again and again hospitals overwhelmed, health care workers overwhelmed.
And Governor Cuomo was held up as sort of a pandemic hero. He held those daily briefings that got a lot of attention. He was hailed for his response back then. He wrote a book about it.
What do these revelations now — what kind of impact do they have on all that?
- Jesse McKinley:
Well, I will tell you, as someone who was at most of their briefings early on, he was getting an enormously great reviews from a lot of people, saying that he was handling the situation in a way that the federal administration was not, that he was being forthright, that he was being honest, that he was following the data, that he was following the science, …
Now, however, with these revelations, that sort of no-nonsense, straight shooter kind of political brand that he had built up through this — the early stages of the pandemic, that’s really taken a hit, because, at its core, what we were — have been looking at is a government, a state government, that was not willing to be straight with the people who elected it or the people that cover it, like myself, or the — or its lawmakers, by telling them the truth about how many people died in these homes.
…
So IMO the lie will, by default, require investigations into the decisions made. The people who lost loves ones in nursing homes are gong to outnumber the women accusing the Governor of improprieties.
False dichotomy: it’s possible both for Cuomo to have made bad decisions early in the pandemic, and for many of the critics of his bad decisions to be trying to exaggerate his missteps for political motives.
That’s all distinct from the criticism of the lying, bullying, and sexual harassment, none of which has any possible excuse.
I have to agree with you that it’s venturing off the path but it was push-back against terms like “you know who” that fall into the same category. I also see the op bringing in other politicians into the mix. I will endeavor to keep it focused on Governor Cuomo and invite same.
Also, as if often the case in political discussions, there is an emotional aspect that comes out in responses. It’s inevitable that people see someone from their “team” take a hit and feel it’s a hit against the whole team. there are a number of responses in this thread that are purely political shots without any input whatsoever and fall into this emotional quagmire.