Leftists Calling Out Andrew Cuomo's Failure

Perhaps we have been starved of it for such a long time, but we are always happy to praise intellectual integrity, wherever we find it. We recall, as we have consistently reported, the sold work done by leftist journalists on the Russian collusion hoax and the Ukraine impeachment fiasco.

It is not trivial that Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Stephen Cohen, Aaron Mate and Alan Dershowitz offered up important writings on these subjects. Evidently, they were not supporting Trump, but they recognized that if we do not apply a single set of standards to politicians on the left and the right, we do not have a country. 

So, today we open the Guardian and we find one of our favorite socialists, Nathan Robinson opining on the manifest leadership failure of one Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Robinson co-authored the piece with one Lyta Gold. Both work at a leftist journal called Current Affairs. One recalls that Robinson has been a thought leader in recommending that we takeTara Reade’s charges against Joe Biden seriously.

Dare I say, that Robinson is no Trump fan. Anything but. Yet, he offers a fair and objective appraisal of current media darling Andrew Cuomo. Again, it is good to see intellectual integrity. At a time when the American left has turned the media into a propaganda organ, God knows, we need it.

Amazingly, Robinson and Gold open, Gov. Cuomo is wildly popular these days. It shows you what media propaganda can do for you. 

Andrew Cuomo may be the most popular politician in the country. His approval ratings have hit all-time highs thanks to his Covid-19 response. Some Democrats have discussed him as a possible replacement for Joe Biden, due to Biden’s perceived weakness as a nominee. And there have even been some unfortunate tributes to Cuomo’s alleged sex appeal.

Were we to be fair, they continue, Cuomo has failed miserably and ought, if we had any standards, be loathed:

All of which is bizarre, because Cuomo should be one of the most loathed officials in America right now. ProPublica recently released a report outlining catastrophic missteps by Cuomo and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, which probably resulted in many thousands of needless coronavirus cases. ProPublica offers some appalling numbers contrasting what happened in New York with the outbreak in California. By mid-May, New York City alone had almost 20,000 deaths, while in San Francisco there had been only 35, and New York state as a whole suffered 10 times as many deaths as California.

Comparing New York and California is sobering indeed. And, clearly, the governor, along with the mayor of New York, bears most of the responsibility:

Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor. Cuomo initially “reacted to De Blasio’s idea for closing down New York City with derision”, saying it “was dangerous” and “served only to scare people”. He said the “seasonal flu was a graver worry”. A spokesperson for Cuomo “refused to say if the governor had ever read the state’s pandemic plan”. Later, Cuomo would blame the press, including the New York Times for failing to say “Be careful, there’s a virus in China that may be in the United States?” even though the Times wrote nearly 500 stories on the virus before the state acted. Experts told ProPublica that “had New York imposed its extreme social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been cut by half or more”.

But delay was not the only screw-up. Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests. 

And Cuomo, the authors underscore, has taken no responsibility for his own failures:

The governor has failed to take responsibility for the obvious failures, consistently blaming others and at one point even saying “governors don’t do pandemics”. (Actually, some governors just don’t read their state’s pandemic plans.) But much of the press has ignored this, focusing instead on Cuomo’s aesthetic presentation: his poise during press conferences, his dramatic statements about “taking responsibility” (even when he obviously hasn’t), and his invisible good looks.

The media looked on in awe at something called Cuomo’s mask mural. You cannot get any more pathetic:

The mask mural is yet another publicity stunt mistaken by the press as a sign of leadership. On 29 April, Cuomo unveiled a wall of handmade cloth masks that had been sent to his office by concerned citizens all over America. He called it “a self-portrait of America. You know what that spells? It spells love.” Since the arrangement of masks doesn’t form words, the mural doesn’t actually spell anything, but it is a perfect symbol of Cuomo’s leadership failures. 

As I said, credit where credit is due. Two voices from the left call out the appalling failure of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.