New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announces his resignation

17 thoughts on “New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announces his resignation

  1. 1.I think there is no question that Democrats would impeach and convict Bill Clinton today. In the late 1990s it was not the accepted view that having a relationship with a subordinate was completely improper as it is now. People’s views on that collectively were evolving at that time. The counter argument that, in this case, Monica Lewis was an adult who was in a consensual relationship was still a widely held and acceptable position.

    That said, while I realize that sex makes smart people do stupid things, I think President Clinton would have been aware that the Democratic Party would not have found that behavior acceptable and, if he were President today and at the same age as he was then, he would not have had this relationship with Lewinsky. I have no doubt he would have found somebody outside of the White House to have an affair with.

    2.I was pleased to see Scoopy mention the ‘materiality’ of the Monica Lewinsky question from Paula Jones’ lawyers. I think the clear intent of that question was not to establish anything for the record on that matter, but to force Clinton to settle out of court on terms much more favorable to Paula Jones.

    3.In regards to President Carter, his ‘Sainted’ status is mostly based on his post-Presidency. While he was regarded as a decent and honest person as President, he was also regarded by many as a sanctimonious jerk (especially by his fellow Democrats in Congress.)

    However, he could be very rough when he felt it was needed. Possibly the most sordid thing he did was run a radio ad when running in the Democratic Primary for Georgia governor in 1970 in which Carter said he would never be the tool of any ‘block’ vote, slurring over the word ‘block’ so that it could be mistaken for ‘black.’

    1. Pretty much every president would be impeached by today’s Democrats if evaluated by today’s standards. Beloved Abraham Lincoln was a white supremacist who used the n word. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves. Franklin Roosevelt was considered an aspiring dictator by many, a man who defied the two-term limit and tried to pack the Supreme Court. Not only that, he approved the internment of Japanese Americans. And of course, Jimmy Carter used to murder drifters and bury them in his peanut patch, which was totally acceptable in the 70s.

  2. Just a quick note on the slick willy vs Trump comparison re: womanizing and enablers ~ totally true w/Hillary being her hubby’s #1 enabler. But would posit in today’s me too, 24/7 cable news interweb era slick willy would not/could not win the Dem potus primary. Whereas Trump could easily win another Rep potus primary as his sheep/lemmings/enablers are still with him 100%. 😮 Come hell or high water. Apologies to the sea.

    Indeed, only in the current party of Lincoln can a scumbag like Trump continue to thrive. Apologies to scumbags.

    Yielding back the balance of my time …

  3. I was in the College Republicans at SUNY Albany in the 1980’s and unsurprisingly, as a group, we didn’t hold Mario in particularly high regard. But for the most part, I liked Andrew. Well liked might be a overly strong adjective. Mostly, I really appreciated the way he governed as a (New York) moderate. But given the number of allegations against him and the damning AG report there was no way he could remain in office. This wasn’t like taking part in a racially offensive skit as a student 30 years. Some of the alleged conduct was criminal. Cuomo doesn’t seem to have a Clinton level lack of shame, but it takes some chutzpah to thank the women who came forward for teaching him where the line is today. As though there was ever a time when it was OK to grab a woman’s breast without her consent. There was a time in the not too distant past where powerful men could routinely get away with sexually assaulting subordinates, but that never made it “OK.”

    I know next to nothing about Kathy Hochul, but I have a feeling that is about to change. Hopefully, she governs as a moderate. But if not, it won’t be too much of a change because Cuomo moved sharply left after he was accused in a futile attempt to shore up support on his left. What bothers me most about this whole thing (other than the way those women were treated of course) is the way Bill De Blasio is gloating. I really enjoyed the way Cuomo would yank on De Blasio’s leash when he got out of line. I’m going to miss that. At least De Blasio will be gone in 5 months.

    1. The phrase “Clinton level lack of shame” jars on me, at least now in 2021. I can think of a lot of people in public office who have a lot more to be ashamed of than Clinton. Those people not only lack shame entirely, they mostly say they are proud of what they have done. I think you need a new yardstick of shame for a new era.

      Otherwise, I am glad to read your opinion, since you know far more about New York state and city politics than I do.

      1. Same here, Michael. Though it occurs to me that “Clinton level lack of shame” could equally apply to Hilary for being the lukewarm triangulating windsock who lost to Trump.

      2. Brett Kavanaugh level lack of shame might be closer to this. But, Kavanaugh is a Federalist Society lawyer so he literally got a pass from the right wing ruling elite Old Boys club.

      3. And this is where I state from first hand experience that Cuomo has always been a corrupt POS and that trump, Schumer, Cuomo, the clintons and others have all been “doing favors” for each other years before they became political adversaries.

        *Cue the know it all “intellectual class” stating they know better than I do because they read a book and watched cnn.*

        1. ^^^^This is kind of what I meant, Michael, although we cannot be certain that Steverino is in public office.

      4. I remember watching the news when the whole Monica Lewinsky story broke. I don’t remember if George Stephanopoulos was already working at ABC or if he was just on as a guest. But I remember him saying that if it turned out Clinton had lied he would have to resign. But it turns out he was wrong about that. That’s what I was referring to about Clinton’s lack of shame. But there are far to many people out there who should feel shame but don’t to possibly list here. Neither political party has clean hands here.

        Still, Bill Clinton versus Andrew Cuomo really makes an interesting comparison. Both have been accused of fondling women against their will, but Clinton was accused of rape. Roberta Kaplan was the cofounder of the Times Up Legal Defense Fund. She was just forced to resign from the fund’s board because one of her clients is Melissa DeRosa, a top aid to Cuomo who was accused in the AG’s report of attempting to undermine the credibility of one of Cuomo’s accusers. But Bill Clinton had a group in his campaign, headed by Hillary, that was responsible for reacting to “bimbo eruptions.” This is something that they bragged about in The War Room, a documentary about Clinton’s 1992 campaign. Roberta Kaplan was forced to resign because she reviewed a letter about one of Cuomo’s accusers written by Derosa. Hillary Clinton was in charge of destroying the credibility of women she knew were being truthful and she was almost elected president.

        Now a large part of the difference is because people are finally being held to account for outrageous awful behavior. That is a very good thing. But perhaps an even larger part of the difference is because Democrats don’t feel an ideological or political need to defend Cuomo’s awful behavior the way they felt a need to defend Clinton’s. Not that Republicans have any right to look down on Democrats after the way so many defended Trump.

        1. Was Monica Lewinsky an unwilling victim of Bill Clinton’s behavior? How long did it take Ken Starr to dig her up? Actually, didn’t he come up with Linda Tripp, who very much wanted to weaponize Lewinsky’s story against Clinton?

          1. There is a view among some feminists that the disparity in power between an intern and the POTUS is so great that real consent is impossible. I don’t share that view myself. But Monica Lewinsky was brought up legitimately in the discovery of the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit. That’s because Jones alleged she had been sexually propositioned by Clinton and that made Clinton’s history of sexually propositioning subordinates relevant.

            Ken Starr was appointed as a special prosecutor to look into the Clintons involvement with a failed Arkansas land deal (Whitewater). There were allegations that witnesses were pressured and/or bribed not to cooperate with the investigation. For instance Susan McDougal went to jail for 18 months for contempt rather than answer questions before a grand jury. If true that would have constituted obstruction of justice. However Starr, possibly because of that lack of cooperation, was unable to prove any crime. But when the Lewinsky story broke there were allegations that she had been pressured/bribed to keep quiet/lie. My understanding is a high powered Washington attorney and friend of Clinton’s had helped her prepare an affidavit for the Jones case denying sex with Clinton. The similarities were such that Starr sought and received permission from a supervising federal judge to add an investigation of any perjury/obstruction of Justice in the Jones case to his Whitewater investigation. That he was able to prove and the rest is history. That is what I remember at least.

          2. Ken Starr was a special prosecutor who was sent on a fishing expedition by the Republicans to look for something, anything, that could be used against Clinton. At one point, IIRC, he wanted to give up and go back to Pepperdine law school, but was told in no uncertain terms to get back and find something. His investagation was a travesty. Which is, to me, confirmed by the fact that the special prosecutor statue was subsequently repealed, which is why there was no special prosecutor for Trump.

            Trying to justify the Ken Starr investigation, the use of Monica Lewinsky, and the subsequent impeachment of Clinton is just plain wrong, because all those things were just plain wrong.

            That impeachment was exactly when everyone should have realized that the Republican Party leadership no longer cared about the United States. It should have only become more obvious since that time.

            I have no idea why you feel compelled to defend this travesty. Is it because you supported it at the time? Hey, I supported the US invasion of Iraq for a while. Sure, Bush and Cheney were not trustworthy, but I thought people like Colin Powell were. I was wrong. Anybody can be wrong. The trick is admitting it.

          3. I had just written a 3 paragraph response when I dropped my mouse deleting what I wrote. Probably for the best anyway. My points were that I wasn’t trying to defend the Starr investigation or Clinton impeachment so much as to give my best recollection of the official reasons Starr’s investigation was expanded. For what it’s worth, I believe the official reasons for the expansion (I’m naive). But I do think Paula Jones” suit was politically motivated. I did believe Clinton’s impeachment was justified. I still believe that. I knew two African-American women that were in prison for committing perjury in a civil deposition. I bring that up because of all the people that said no one was ever prosecuted for it. But I also had a witness to a statement that proved my client’s age discrimination case admit that the bank president had said what my client said he’d said but then tell me he’d lie if I subpoenaed him for a deposition. I told him that would be perjury and he said “So what? The president did it.” That is why he deserved impeachment and deserved to be convicted.

          4. We’ve been through the Paula Jones case before, but for the record …

            The definition the judge gave Clinton did NOT force a clear interpretation that receiving oral sex was considered sexual relations. When Clinton was being deposed in the Jones lawsuit, one of the first things that the Jones lawyers did was to hand him the definition of “sexual relations” with three separate paragraphs. After legal back-and-forth between the lawyers, Judge Wright narrowed the definition to only the first of the three numbered paragraphs. Clinton testified that he circled part one to remind him that it was the only one that applied. Receiving oral gratification was NOT covered by that, but giving it was. By the definition he was asked to consider, Lewinsky had had sexual relations with him, but he had not had sexual relations with her. That was how Clinton interpreted the definition, and it is also how I interpreted it. Other interpretations could be considered, but the fact of the matter is that Clinton’s interpretation is a valid one, and given that perfectly valid interpretation, he did not commit perjury. Clinton had studied the matter very carefully, and had found the loophole in the poor wording by Jones’s lawyers. I would have given the same answer in his stead.

            All Jones’s lawyers would have had to ask him is whether he considered receiving oral sex to be covered by the definition, and they would have been able to pin him down further from there. But they never did ask the only question that was relevant.

            The Slickster certainly intended to mislead his questioners in the Jones deposition, but the Bronston case emphasized that intent to mislead is not the legal standard in deciding whether someone made a false statement under federal perjury law. It is up to the examining lawyer to establish a clear record of the witness’s testimony. This is something that the Jones lawyers failed to do. Instead of probing how Clinton understood phrases like “sexual relationship,” they handed him their own definition. If the judge had left all three paragraphs intact, Clinton would have had to admit a sexual relationship based on the BJs, but the limited definition provided Clinton with an opportunity to search for loopholes – and he found one.

            Also, in order for a lie to be perjury, it must be material. For example, if a witness lies outright under oath about wearing a toupee, that is only perjury if his toupee is somehow related to the case. It is highly questionable to argue that a fully consensual relationship with one woman is somehow material to whether he harassed another, and there was never any assertion that he had harassed Lewinsky. Of course it would not be up to the witness to make the sole determination of what is or isn’t material, but if perjury charges were filed, it would be up to the prosecutor to prove materiality and that would be a tough sell in this instance to me as a juror, even though the presiding judge had allowed that line of questioning.

            It is not a crime for a witness to be smarter than the lawyers questioning him. This is why Arnold Rothstein never went to jail. Sure, Clinton revealed himself to be a weasel, but being a weasel certainly could not disqualify one from the Presidency. I think you could argue that weaseling is almost a job requirement, and probably is absolutely required to get elected to the job in the first place. I’ll bet if we studied the matter closely enough, we could even find weaselly behavior from Saint Jimmy.

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