124 – WHAT SHOULD GOV. ANDREW CUOMO DO? (An Editorial Opinion)

I would like to think that most of the over 100 editorial opinions that I have written on this blog have generally been pretty uncontroversial, unless of course you are one of the 74 million or so who have drunken the Trump Kool-Aid.  In that case, I’m sure that those folks would consider the vast majority of my editorials to be nothing but garbage and the product of just another never-Trumper.

This is one time where I will voice a written opinion that I am quite sure WILL be controversial, even among many readers who may otherwise generally agree with me.  So be it.

There are growing calls now for Andrew Cuomo to resign his position as Governor of New York.  With each new woman who makes accusations, those calls have gotten louder.  There are also calls for his impeachment.

This may come as a surprise to some, but in my opinion, I do not believe at present that he should either resign or be impeached.

The accusations against him must be taken seriously.  If nothing else has come of the MeToo movement, that certainly must be a constant.  But accusations are just that – one person’s account of what happened.  When there are multiple people coming forward, that certainly gives more weight to each accusation than it would have on its own.  If the accusations are credibly supported by others, that too must be taken into consideration.

It bothered me then, and still does today, with the way the Al Franken accusations played out.  I think that he succumbed to intense political pressure way to quickly and resigned before any of his accusations were forced to really stand up to the light of scrutiny. 

At least to my knowledge, there was no pattern of harassing behavior with Franken before that happened, no evidence that he was not a trustworthy person, there was at least some contrition on his part, and to this day, his few public comments since resignation seem to indicate regrets that he did not defend himself more vigorously.

I do not wish to see Andrew Cuomo make that same mistake if, in fact, he does not truly believe that his actions did not rise to the level of more than just being ignorant and certainly tone-deaf, particularly in this time of MeToo.

Now cynics may say that my opinion is based greatly, if not entirely, on the fact that both Cuomo and Franken have a (D) after their names.  I have thought long and hard about that as well.  In fact, had I decided not to write this editorial, that doubt would have been the primary reason had I opted not to.  The fact that I am writing this now is evidence, at least to me, that I do not believe that is the case.

Accusations alone are not facts, no matter how many there are.   Until the people making the accusations, and those who purport to corroborate them, and also the one being accused, are able to testify under oath and then have their truthfulness be judged by a jury of their peers, then unless the accused admits to wrongdoing, the accused should be afforded the opportunity to defend themselves.

That was certainly true in both Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein’s case.  Think of all those women who came forward with accusations against both of those men.  But since both men always denied it, it was not until each man and at least one of his accusers testified in a criminal trial, and the juries found Cosby and Weinstein guilty, that the truth was determined in the eyes of the law.

Until a criminal trial is held to determine guilt or innocence, or until a civil suit is filed and accusers and dependents are forced to testify under oath, I don’t feel in this case that either personal or political pressure should force the Governor to resign.

In the meantime, short of a completed trial or a civil judgement, we must base our own opinions on the information that we are aware of, but all the time being aware that just because someone says something, that does not make it true … on either side.

So why do I still at this time give Cuomo the benefit of the doubt, other than the fact that in our system, that is the absolute right of any accused person?

First, almost all elected Republican officials have absolutely no credibility whatsoever to self-righteously claim that Cuomo must go because he has been accused multiple times.  They had over four years to make that claim against Donald Trump, and they passed at every opportunity.

I am not saying that since Trump was never held accountable, then neither should Cuomo be held accountable.  I am not saying that at all.

But since each has denied the accusations, let’s consider the differences between how each has handled them since being accused.

• Trump trashed all of his accusers mercilously. 
  • With the exception of only one that I know of, where Cuomo did say that one accuser has been a political adversary for many years, I don’t believe that Cuomo has attacked any of his accusers.  He certainly has not publicly attacked any of their characters that I am aware of.
• Trump never expressed any regrets at all nor offered any apology.   Nor did he ever even imply that someone could have misinterpreted his actions.  He simply labeled every single one of his accusers as a liar and a never-Trumper. 
  • While not yet perhaps as skillfully or completely empathetically as I would certainly like to have seen, Cuomo has in fact acknowledged that some of his actions could have been considered inappropriate, and he has apologized. 
• Trump was clearly caught on tape long ago admitting that he thought that he could get away with exactly the type of behavior for which he was being accused, simply because he considered himself a “star”.
• Trump lied thousands of times, over and over again, about things both big and small.  He proved himself to be a completely unrepentant, serial liar.  So when he denies sexual harassment, that certainly has to be part of the equation as to whether or not he can be believed or not.
  • I am not aware of any recurring pattern of lies at all of which Cuomo has been accused.  Certainly, there is an accusation that he and/or his administration in some way lied or covered up some things relating to nursing home deaths in New York.  Those, too, are just accusations at present.  But as far as I know, unlike Trump, he has not been shown to be a serial liar in the past.

Now it appears that Cuomo has personally done little to engender much empathy for his situation.  By all accounts, he certainly appears to be someone who enjoys wielding power, and has not gone out of his way to make a lot of friends in the past.  But just because someone is unlikable, or perhaps even a jerk, does not then automatically make them guilty when accusations are raised against them.

On the plus side, I don’t think anyone else, certainly none of the other 49 state Governors, could have handled the Covid crisis that New York had last year, any better than Cuomo attempted to handle it at the time.  Cuomo credibly filled a huge daily void not just for New York, but for the entire country, that most assuredly should have instead been filled by the President of the United States.

We were horrified to see our nation’s daily Covid fatalities rise to more than 3000 and more in January, and even now it is still horrible to lose between 1000 and 2000 per day.  A year ago, New York City alone was losing up to 800 and 900 people per day at a time when no one knew virtually anything at all about the virus, and the President was claiming it was nothing to worry about and was attacking Cuomo at every opportunity.    

That in no way means that Cuomo does not now deserve to be held accountable and to be held up to scrutiny in light of these accusations. 

But at least in my mind, Andrew Cuomo also has earned some benefit of the doubt so as to not automatically be thrown under the bus.