That didn’t take long. As of this afternoon, facing both impeachment and possible criminal charges for sexual harassment (11 women came forward), Andrew Cuomo resigned as governor of New York State. Granted, he never had a day in court, or an impeachment hearing, but there was a damning 165-page report that Cuomo himself requested. And the most important issue, as he notes below, is one of keeping the state going on, especially during the pandemic—not defending himself ad infinitum. He did the right thing, and will resign in 14 days. His successor will be Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, another Democrat, who will be the first woman governor of New York.
I’m wondering if anyone thinks there’s been a rush to judgment. The report itself was pretty damning, and if criminal charges are brought, he will have his day in court. In my view, this is a satisfactory outcome, and the necessary one.
Yes, it was the right decision
He put public interest before his own, whether actually guilty or not.
Good move either way: if guilty , the right thing to do, if not, still the right thing and gains kudos for putting public interest first.
This is a satisfactory outcome. It avoids complexity and dragging out the inevitable. Satisfaction for the 11 can come from criminal proceedings.
Other than the length and size of the investigation this was a pretty basic sexual harassment case. At the company level they do not do 5 month long investigations like this. Usually a a couple of weeks to a month is all that is necessary for most cases. Sexual harassment is not a court room thing in almost all cases. It is a private and very low profile event that looks for the facts and evidence and then those in charge make a decision. If you give those accused a microphone such as the governor had you would pretty much hear the same stuff. I did nothing wrong, they are mistaken, they are lying and it is all political. They almost always say the same no matter how guilty they are or how much evidence has been collected. Sexual harassers do not like to go quietly. Only a place like a University would turn sexual harassment into a court room or round table discussion. That is no way to proceed. The fact of the matter is, most investigations done correctly and by trained personnel will discover the correct conclusion in sexual harassment cases. Always take them out of the chain of command whether a private company or government or military.
Governor Meatball is out! (credit to comedian Tim Dillion for that nickname)
So in the last 15 years or so, NY has had a patronizer of prostitutes (Spitzer) and now a serial harasser and goon. A bit of a cesspool there…
At least one of the two major US political parties is still capable of taking out its own trash.
Republicans used to be able to do it, too, at least as recently as ’74, when Barry Goldwater and his GOP posse made the trek down Capitol Hill to the White House to tell Dick Nixon it was hasta la vista time. No more. Now they cover their trash in gilding — you know, like certain towers in Manhattan — and make it the object of cult worship instead.
If Cuomo commissioned a report, and they took 5 months to do it, and came back with 160 pages of material, and it’s damning of Cuomo, then I think it’s safe to say that no, this was not rushed or premature. That’s a pretty sedate pace, IMO. As Randall says, had he been a senior leader or CEO of a private corporation, they would’ve spent at most 2-4 weeks at it and then made the remain/out call.
Glad he’s gone (I live in NYC), when he came out swinging in complete denial after the report first came out, I’m surprised he’s ended up resigning, the man had an ego larger than the state.
It’s just a shame this all came out after he’d shut down the nuclear energy plant, Indian Point, carbon emissions have immediately risen 50% and he sanctioned new gas power plants to replace it, all the while claiming he was doing great things to combat climate change, he only cared about himself and his persona (and he should get thrown in jail for his book deal too).
“I’m wondering if anyone thinks there’s been a rush to judgment.”
Ask yourself what your opinions would be if Cuomo had been a Republican. Then you can better judge if you are being too charitable to Cuomo or not.
My jaundiced view is that any politician or business man that resigns for “the sake of my business/customers/party/fellow citizens” is probably spinning a self serving excuse to cover their forced exit.
I briefly thought Cuomo had gone yesterday when I misread a headline, only to find that it was Melissa DeRosa his secretary who had resigned.I
PS: I see the infrastructure bill has passed in the Senate :o)
Altogether, not a good day for chaps called Andrew who are accused of wrongdoing: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/10/prince-andrew-sweating-lawsuit-duke-york-virginia-giuffre
Cuomo had to go, no question about it. He did the right thing. However, I do find it fascinating that the NYT called for his resignation, but never called for Trump to resign. I have also come to the sad conclusion that the media, in general, seem to relish piling on Dems, but never seem to go after Republicans in the same zealous manner. I believe this is due to fear of the conservative right in general and the Republicans in particular.
You can’t be serious. Trump was impeached twice…this was cheered the whole way by the NYT, the Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN…the list goes on. The NYT in particular was obsessed with coverage of Trump during his entire presidency, and almost all of this coverage was unambiguously negative.
If the liberal media and the Left were afraid of Trump, I’d hate to see what they would have done if they weren’t!
I am quite serious. I use the coverage of Hillary Clinton as a further example. She was pilloried from the time she start her run for the Presidency until she lost. The NYT did enormous damage to her campaign. The Clintons were the politicians that the NYT loved to hate.