Rant #2,706: Lyin' Eyes

Heck, I just don’t know what to make of the sexual harassment charges that the New York State attorney general had found to be true involving Andrew Cuomo, the state’s governor.
 
He was accused by 11 women of sexual harassment—including touching them in perverted ways, speaking to them in sexualized banter, and even for grooming some of them for the bedroom with his ways and antics—but somehow, I still don’t believe all of the charges against him are fully true.
 
But it doesn’t matter what I believe.
 
The governor has been found guilty of all of this against the 11 women, and he is firing back, stating emphatically that this deed was politically motivated, and that he has no intention of resigning, because the truth of these matters was not dealt with in the final outcome.
 
First off, it is so bizarre that the one thing that should get him to step down or be impeached, and to me the most important impropriety that he did—his handling of nursing homes during the early days off the pandemic—has kind of been swept under the rug.
 
Thousands of our seniors in nursing homes died because of his idiotic decisions, but again, that is not sexy enough to convict him of anything, I guess.
 
I mean, what does the public grab onto more—the deaths of our senior citizens or his sexual antics against young, nubile women?
 
It’s a no brainer, and that is why the latter might just be the thing that gets him in the end, and certainly not the former.
 
After the announcement was made by the attorney general related to the sexual harassment case, Cuomo came back with his rebuttal, which I found to be very weak in places, but very spot on in other places.
 
One negative right from the get go was that the rebuttal was obviously pre-taped, so what we were getting from the governor was pre-planned and pre-written, which I think right then and there was a negative.
 
You don’t answer such heinous situations with a pre-taped reply, one that was probably written by your attorneys and vetted to the hilt to make sure you don’t get yourself into even deeper hot water.
 
Like President Bill Clinton years before, who famously said, “I did not have sex with that woman,” Cuomo pretty much did the same, stating that he did not do what the outcome said he did with any of the 11 women.
 
Summing it up here, he said that a lot of the things that happened between him and the women were blown out of proportion and/or misinterpreted, and that he was sorry that certain, specific women took his reaching out to them in their own problematic times as sexual advances.
 
Things also came out when the attorney general told the public what her office found him to have done that are incredible, like putting his hands on a state trooper that was there to protect him as he went about his governmental business.
 
That was something completely out of left field, and Cuomo did not address those charges during his rebuttal.
 
But some points that he said did have some merit, even if they certainly don’t excuse him from his abhorrent behavior, or from making his office a toxic workplace.
 
He did state that the conclusions drawn by the attorney general were politically motivated, and they just might have been so, even if he did exactly what he was said to have done.
 
Attorney General Letitia James has been rumored to have set her sights on Cuomo’s job.
 
And by the way, Cuomo was the state attorney general before he became governor, so there might be some credence to what he said about politics running the show here.
 
There was also some folderol about one of the attorneys who worked on this case, but that being said, Cuomo said something as part of his rebuttal that bears worth repeating that I think carries more water than the “political” stuff, but still does not exonerate him from what he evidently did to these women.
 
He stated that much of this has to do with cultural and generational actions and perceptions, admitting that many of the things he allegedly did—like kissing people on the cheek, putting his hands on their upper bodies, etc.—had to do with his age and upbringing.
 
Even though most people are laughing this off, we are in an obvious sea change right now, and practices of the past that were once accepted are not anymore.
 
Politicians used to kiss babies, but they can’t do that anymore.
 
Politicians used to greet people by kissing them on the cheek, but you can’t do anymore.
 
Politicians used to put their hands on people’s shoulders, but you can’t do anymore.
 
Cuomo is not only a Baby Boomer at age 63, but he is also Italian—meaning that he is very expressive in his acknowledgment of people.
 
However, he is now running into a new generation of younger people, people who if you look at them in what they think is the wrong way, they can get offended at the drop of a hat.
 
I am not giving the governor a full pass on this—he should have known that these "innocent" things that he did does not wash today as they did when he started his career and even further back, when his father was the governor.
 
But it is difficult behavior to change, and I do believe him when he says that this is the way he has been acting his entire life, and that many of these moves, which the women claimed had a sexual lilt to them, were completely innocent.
 
But the innocence goes out the window when the kisses went from the cheeks to the lips and the hands on the shoulders went to hands on private parts of these women.
 
Do I think that a lot of what the women said was overblown in their minds?
 
Yes, I do.
 
But if they were offended by the innocent gestures, you can only imagine how they felt when the actions, and the words out of Cuomo’s mouth, went into a southerly direction, centering on more personal areas of the women’s minds and bodies.
 
Where does that leave Cuomo?
 
He emphatically said that he is not going to resign.
 
He can be impeached, and unlike what happened to Presidents Clinton and Trump, he cannot serve in office while the impeachment is in process.
 
He can wait it all out, and see what others’ next steps are.
 
And he can run for governor again, probably not as a Democrat, but as an independent.
 
Cuomo is and was an extremely popular governor in a state whose voters are about three-quarters Democrats.
 
Amid all of this turmoil, he continues to have a 50 percent or so approval rating.
 
And looking at others who might run—wannabes at best—he would have a great chance of winning again, believe it or not, in spite of this debacle and other questionable actions on his very full plate.
 
And everyone loves a comeback … I mean, President Clinton is looked at today as an icon by many people, and he was far from being an angel while he held the top post in our country.

And President Trump ... I don't think the book has been fully closed on him either.
 
Personally, I think he will wait everything out and not jump in any direction just yet. It pays to lay low and see what happens.
 
And just as an aside, a key to his behavior has not been unlocked.
 
Cuomo, a divorced father of three girls, lived for many years with Sandra Lee, the TV cooking personality.
 
In essence, they had a common law marriage, and she was, in essence, the state’s first lady.
 
They broke up many months ago for undisclosed reasons.
 
I wonder what stories she has to tell about her former paramour, stories that would perhaps show why Cuomo did what he did.
 
But she is never mentioned, and as a well known TV personality, you have to wonder why that is.
 
Maybe she has told her people that she refuses to talk about this subject to anyone right now, maybe she feels that she will be found guilty by association, maybe things will come out of the closet that she does not want revealed.

Maybe she has her own story to tell, but right now is not the appropriate time.
 
But you have to wonder why he name has not come up … not yet, anyway.
 
Just sayin’.