I watched Andrew Cuomo's resignation speech and was embarrassed and shocked by it. First of all he presented himself as the victim throughout the entire thing. He blamed everyone and everything but himself. He continued to talk about his personal culture, how he was brought up, and the fact that he knew times had changed but he just couldn't always be counted on to keep up. He proved Andrew Cuomo is a dinosaur and there are reasons dinosaurs are extinct.
But he had more in his arsenal of bullying tactics and Cuomo gamesmanship. He came up with a female attorney who was willing to go out and blame the victims in the most crass and objectionable way. This woman went out and presented a powerpoint before his speech that showed pictures of one of the victims and basically said that this young woman was asking for it. Imagine the gall, the shaming and the callousness.
Now I had some experience with Andrew Cuomo as Governor while working for a non profit providing support to people with disabilities. It became clear pretty quickly after he was elected that he really didn't have any real concern for people with disabilities, their families or the people who supported them. Anything that we got from Andrew Cuomo had to be fought for and the rewards were never that great. He also had no qualms about adding to the regulatory burden that agencies and people had to follow. He did however demand complete loyalty and gratitude for whatever new things he came up with.
There were many enemies that Andrew Cuomo made along the way, even when he got things done. That's what happens when you let people know that they owe you when things they care about are accomplished or that their cause wasn't really that important anyway. Victims were scattered across Cuomo's path as Governor -victims of bullying, victims of being ignored, victims of old fashioned powerful, white male superiority.
Susan Arbetter, the great newscaster and journalist, tweeted the following which I think really captures what we've all just witnessed:
"The fall of Cuomo can be traced from Aristotle to Machiavelli to Voldemort: A hero in his own mind with hubris to burn and a master of realpolitik, ultimately brought to his knees by those he victimized."
