In Cuomo We Trust?

(Illustrated Getty Image/iStock)

“Do not be wise in words. Be wise in deeds.”
-Jewish Proverbs

Just a few months ago, Andrew Cuomo, the three-term Governor of New York, was a folk hero and considered a future Presidential contender. The New York Times asked “Can Andrew Cuomo be one of New York’s greatest governors?”. He was being celebrated as the perfect foil to President Trump. The media portrayed him as a beacon of light. A politician who took charge and guided us through a deadly pandemic by following the science, and listening to the advice of his health experts, unlike our former President.

The Governor became the darling of talk show and late-night hosts. Ellen DeGeneres, Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert professed their love for him as self-confessed “Cuomosexuals”, which according to the urban dictionary is “someone who possesses a powerful urge to engage in various sexual behaviors with a member of the Cuomo family.” 

Major Hollywood celebrities like Spike Lee, Robert DeNiro, Rosie Perez and Ben Stiller were rushing to praise the wonderful Mr. Cuomo in a video tribute at the Emmy Awards, where he received a statuette for his Covid press briefings. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences issued a statement saying it was breaking a long-standing tradition in order to award a sitting politician an Emmy because, unlike most politicians, Mr. Cuomo was real.

He became a regular on CNN. His brother, Chris Como, routinely brought him on his show to heap praise for his handling of the pandemic. There were numerous puff pieces in the mainstream media and the New York Times that declared him “the politician of the moment.” Democratic activists were even pushing for Mr. Cuomo to become Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick until Mr. Biden made it clear that he was going to pick a woman.

Riding high on all this adoration, Mr. Cuomo decided in the middle of the worst global pandemic in one hundred years to write a book praising his own handling of it. In the book he writes “It seems that every day I tell people not to get cocky about this pandemic, and every day they get cockier”. If only he had followed his own advice.

I am a Democrat, and I was watching this with shock and dismay because it was all happening in spite of the fact that New York was one of the worst hit cities in the country. At the time when Mr. Cuomo published his book and was taking a victory lap, more than 30,000 New Yorkers had died from COVID-19 - far more than any other state in the country.

The truth is that Mr. Cuomo botched the initial response to the crisis, by downplaying the virus and dragging his feet on implementing lockdown measures. As late as 13^th March 2020, after California had instituted a ‘shelter in place’ order, the Governor was resisting, saying that “New York City will not be quarantined: It cannot happen”. This after weeks of playing a game of chicken with our Mayor, with whom he has a long history of animosity.

Throughout the crisis Mr. Cuomo continued needling Mr. DeBlasio. He repeatedly contradicted the mayor on school closures, MTA service changes and bickered over measures needed to bring Covid hotspots under control. Rather than rise above this petty rivalry, as a real leader might, Mr. Cuomo seemed to take pleasure in overriding the Mayor’s decisions, never once attempting to coordinate his responses with the Mayor’s to prevent unnecessary confusion for business owners, school parents and New Yorkers caught between the two men’s fragile egos.

In March last year, when it was clear that this virus spread like wildfire, and was more deadly for old and sick people, Governor Cuomo made the inexplicable decision of ordering nursing homes to accept hospital patients recovering from COVID-19, even if they were testing positive. At the same time, in true Trumpian style, he slipped in a little noticed provision into his annual budget that shielded corporate officials who run hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities from liability for Covid-related deaths and injuries.

Mr. Cuomo tried defending his inane directive, saying it was issued in ‘anticipation’ of a hospital bed shortage, which never transpired. But after widespread criticism he rescinded the order and then claimed “It never happened” – that sick patients were never sent to nursing homes.

In late May, an Associated Press investigation found that at least 4,500 recovering Covid patients were sent to vulnerable nursing homes, based on the Governor’s directive. In June, a medical professional organization claimed that the Cuomo administration was underreporting nursing home deaths, and the number of deaths was likely much higher than they were admitting.

In response to these allegations, Mr. Cuomo ordered his own Department of Health to conduct an investigation. On July 6, the New York State DOH issued a report absolving his administration of wrongdoing. The report concluded that the virus was introduced by nursing home staff, and not by sick patients returning from hospitals. A second AP investigation found that over 9,000 recovering patients had been sent back to nursing homes and long-term care facilities, concluding that this had “unquestionably” worsened the pandemic as it ripped through our elderly population.

In August, Empire Center, a government watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information Law request for the full death tally in nursing homes. At the same time the Department of Justice launched an investigation to determine whether the state intentionally withheld data regarding deaths in nursing homes.

NY State’s legislature asked the State Health Commissioner, Howard Zucker, for a full accounting of deaths in nursing homes and pressed him on whether there had been an undercounting, he responded saying that there had been “unprecedented transparency” in the public information provided on the number of deaths.

Clearly, Mr. Cuomo believed he would escape scrutiny because it was President Trump’s justice department investigating him, and only right-leaning media seemed interested in pursuing the story. After all, the governor was still the darling of mainstream media, who remained obsessed with President Trump, and felt no need to devote time or resources to investigate the many troubling allegations against the Cuomo administration.

Then in August, as if to add insult to injury to all the New Yorkers who died, Mr. Cuomo announced he was writing a book, chronicling his experiences during the crisis and offering leadership advice. Never mind that we were still in the middle of the crisis and his administration was willfully ignoring the NY State Legislature’s request for an accounting of nursing home deaths.

The full truth only came to light after the NY State Attorney General launched an investigation at the end of January, in no small part thanks to continued pressure from Republican lawmakers and right-leaning media. The attorney general’s report said that Cuomo’s administration undercounted COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, by as much as 50 percent. This means that the real number of nursing home deaths now accounts for about a third of New York State’s total deaths.

The damning report was followed by bombshell disclosure in the New York Post. They published details of a virtual private meeting between Melissa DeRosa, a top Cuomo aide, and several Democratic lawmakers. During the meeting she admitted to hiding nursing home data so the Feds would not find out. On the heels of this revelation we found out that in July last year, top advisors of Mr. Cuomo successfully pressured state health officials to rewrite a report that disclosed substantially higher nursing-home deaths than had been publicly acknowledged. This intervention from his aides occurred at the time that Mr. Cuomo was preparing to write his book.

Much like Mr. Trump, Mr. Cuomo has also repeatedly ignored the advice of health experts. Over the last six months as many as nine top officials have resigned after being sidelined and treated disrespectfully by the Governor. The Governor repeatedly flouted their advice and made changes to pandemic health policy on the fly, often announcing them at his Emmy award winning press conferences. The final straw came when state health officials were blindsided by the Governor’s announcement that the vaccine rollout plan would be coordinated by local private hospitals.

Mr. Cuomo had shelved the vaccine rollout plan designed by the public health experts. It was a plan built based on years of preparation at the local level to counter bioterrorism fears after Sept. 11, and from experience vaccinating people during the H1N1 pandemic. Mr. Cuomo made his own plan after consulting with hospital executives, external consultants and a top hospital lobbyist. In the end, he chose the Greater NY Hospital Association, a group with a multimillion-dollar lobbying arm and a major donor to his campaign, over the city’s own health department.

This explains why New York State’s early vaccination rollout was massively botched and has been plagued by chronic delays, cancelled appointments and vaccine vials being thrown away due to an inability to match patients precisely with the state’s strict guidelines. When asked recently at a press briefing about the mass resignations in the senior ranks of the health department, Mr. Cuomo replied “When I say ‘experts’ in air quotes, it sounds like I’m saying I don’t really trust the experts,” Because I don’t. Because I don’t”.

Now we have a whole new set of revelations showing that the Governor is not only an incompetent megalomaniac, drunk on power, but also a sexual harasser.

This is the same Democrat who a few years ago conveniently aligned himself with the #MeToo movement and launched a “Women's Justice Agenda”. In 2019, when he signed into law legislation to protect against workplace harassment, he said at the time he was doing it to “honour the women who have had the courage to come forward and tell their story…”

Turns out that he is just another hypocrite. We are learning that Mr. Cuomo’s bad behavior led to a ‘hostile, toxic’ workplace culture, based on multiple accusations from former female staffers and aides. Many of the women were forced to abandon their careers because they no longer felt safe or comfortable being around the Governor.

Seems it was an open secret in Albany and within the media that Mr. Cuomo routinely delighted in humiliating employees, bullying and threatening people who challenged him, telling them they will be “subject to negative news stories or political challenges or, in one case, would be publicly likened to a “child rapist.” We saw the very same behaviour when he threatened to destroy the career of NY Assemblyman Ron Kim who had refused to cover for him in the nursing home scandal.

Now as the list of accusers grows, rather than resign, as any respectable person would do, he is doubling down and said this past Sunday, “I’m not going to resign because of allegations.” “There is no way I resign”. Instead, he is employing the Clinton defense and casting doubts on the accounts of the women and possibly attempting to destroy their reputation. He is also suggesting that he be entitled to due process. Mr. Cuomo believes that the public should wait for a full and thorough investigation into the allegations before any action should be taken.

This might be reasonable if Mr. Cuomo had applied the same standards for everyone accused of similar wrongdoing. In 2018, The New Yorker published an article detailing the accounts four women, accusing then Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, of abusive behaviour in their private relationships. Mr. Cuomo was among the first people to call on Mr. Schneiderman to resign, saying that he should do it “for the good of the office”.

In the same year, when Brett Kavanaugh was accused by Dr. Blasey Ford and two other women, Cuomo along with every Democrat chastised Republicans who cast doubt on the three women’s accounts, or argued that the women were exaggerating or misremembering things. At the time Mr. Cuomo tweeted that Mr. Kavanaugh should take a polygraph test. I wonder if Mr. Cuomo is willing to take one now?

Most disheartening to me, aside from the media’s reluctance to investigate the numerous red flags over the last year, is the clear hypocrisy that has been exposed with the Democrats, when it comes to one of their own being accused of wrongdoing.

If Democrats were to hold Mr. Cuomo to the same standards that they applied to President Trump for his abuses of power or to Brett Kavanaugh for the harassment accusations against him, then every Democrat in the land, starting with President Biden on down, should have been calling for Governor Cuomo to resign based on all the revelations thus far.

The silence of the party that claims to hold the moral high-ground is deafening.

 

We Are All Tarun Tejpal

"Money misused, money siphoned off, money wasted - these are the things that hurt us," a sex scandal "means nothing... It is basically a first world indulgence, a means to group voyeurism and artificial excitement." 

Tarun Tejpal (In a 2001 article for Seminar magazine) 

As an Indian man I feel we have let our daughters, sisters, mothers, nieces, aunts, wives and grandmothers down by staying silent. But rather than putting on our burkha's and hiding from this ugly truth, we must fix it by fighting for the rights of women in our society and in the workplace.

Sexism, harassment and rape exist in all cultures, as does sexual abuse based on power and position. But in India the problem of inequality is much more deeply rooted in our culture and society. It begins at birth, when boys are considered prized possessions while girls are often discarded and aborted because they are seen as burdens on families. The practice of Sati may have been abolished but the attitudes surrounding the practice are still prevalent today. We are taught that women are inferior to men; that they are weaker and dependent on men for everything. It is almost as if we are not so subtly told that they are our property, particularly if we are married to them or if they work for us. And it is this attitude among men that prevails, even among the most educated, accomplished and erudite of us. Think about the basic fact that when you and I walk around the streets of any city in India, board a train or a bus, as men we NEVER feel uncomfortable or fear for our safety. Men do not have to deal with being stared at to the point of feeling uncomfortable or being whistled at or even being physically violated by someone touching our buttocks or grabbing our penises. Men do not have to deal with these personal abuses. As men we can dress how we want, smoke, drink and curse openly, in public, and without any fear or repercussion - but what happens when a woman does the same thing? We immediately attach a label to her; if she seems drunk we say she is a loose woman. If a woman curses, we think it unladylike behaviour or again associate her with having loose morals. Are we not all guilty of thinking this at one time or another, even if not acting on it? 

Tarun Tejpal was a crusader for the little people. He fought for those who had been wronged in our society, from taking down corrupt politicians to championing women’s rights. This is a man who preached moral values and claimed to hold himself to higher principles and beliefs. Yet, it is now very clear that when it really comes down to understanding what women’s rights and true equality among the sexes encompass, he is really no better than the men on that Delhi bus that raped and killed Jyoti Singh Pandey. We can no longer pretend that rape and sexual harassment are confined to poor slum dwellers or the non educated. Tarun Tejpal is not only considered a well-educated society intellectual but part of the wealthy elite of our country. People will argue that I am being harsh to equate Tejpal with the animals on that Delhi bus, but the truth is that his attitude and lack of respect for a woman are no different from those of the uneducated man on the street. Granted men like him do not stand on street corners eve teasing every woman that walks by but his actions in the end lead to exactly the same outcome; that of humiliating, disrespecting, disempowering and abusing a woman. Perhaps, his actions are worse because at least on the streets women know to have their guard up, as opposed to the perceived safety of their workplace.

What Mr. Tejpal did was violate a sacred trust between an employer and employee. Mr. Tejpal has already admitted to as much in his email correspondences with the woman. An innocent man does not say things like; “My punishment has already been upon me, and will probably last till my last day." Or “I must do the penance that lacerates me.” That he is guilty of sexually assaulting this woman is not in doubt, but I suspect he has done the same or worse to many other women, who have yet to speak out. It is their silence that has emboldened him and deluded him into believing that he has done nothing wrong. Mr. Tejpal, like Moishe Katsav and many other men with great power, began to delude himself into thinking that he can define his own moral code. If you read the victim’s letter to Shoma Chaudhury, and then read Mr. Tejpal’s response to her saying things like - “I had no idea that you were upset, or felt I had been even remotely non-consensual” – you will begin to see how deluded men like him can become. Powerful men are used to getting their way, all the time, and not accustomed to hearing the word NO. I think men like Tejpal begin to believe that because of the great good they have done in society, it somehow forgives them their trespasses, and that they can conduct themselves in a way that does not apply to the rest of us mere mortals (or perhaps they are just sociopaths).

What should trouble us more in this instance is that there are still many people (including a number of women) who are trying to argue Mr. Tejpal’s defense by questioning the victim’s motivations. Even after it is clear that this is not some attempt to malign his reputation or a political smear campaign, as Mr. Tejpal now claims. Are we all programmed to automatically give the benefit of the doubt to the rich and powerful and mistrust the word of a nobody? Perhaps, this is what predators like Mr. Tejpal count on. They pick on victims they believe are weak and who will not fight back or speak out. And if the victim does say something, then someone like Mr. Tejpal believes it will be easy to discredit her because his word will hold more sway over a nameless, faceless person. However, this time the victim has spoken and her predator has acknowledged that the events transpired. Mr. Tejpal even admits to "twice attempting a 'sexual liaison' despite the reporter's 'clear reluctance'." (Tarun Tejpal's informal apology – NDTV). This issue also goes back to the root of the problem of inequality in India. What can we expect when the President of India’s son calls anti-rape protestors “dented and painted.” We are trained to vilify victims by ostracizing and further humiliating them in a very public way. Instead of supporting them we question their motivations, this after the woman has just experienced not only a traumatic event but been the victim of a serious crime. Also, consider that recently in response to a legal intern writing a blog about a Supreme Court judge sexually harassing her (she is still too scared to file a formal complaint), judges have announced that they will stop hiring female interns as the solution to this allegation. And people are asking why she took so long to report the incident; why she continued to party after he attacked her and still fulfill her job duties?

Rape and sexual assault is the most underreported crime in the world. There is a sense of humiliation, a loss of dignity, powerlessness and severe physical and mental trauma and shock associated with such a violation of a person’s body. Additionally, as in this case, there is also a real fear of retaliation by a powerful and wealthy perpetrator. The victim would likely lose her job and fear for her future financial security. She had to consider that Mr. Tejpal might decide to ruin her life with his power, money and connections in order to protect himself. He has already shown willingness to smear the victim’s character. So it is not surprising that she waited a week to formally file a complaint but laudable that she actually found the courage to do it. We must now support and protect her, and in doing so encourage all the women who have been abused by Mr. Tejpal to also come forward.

This is not about being holier than thou or about fighting for feminism and women’s liberation; I am simply talking about ensuring that women have the same rights in society as men and can walk down the street or wander their office halls without any fear of humiliation or physical molestation. We must give the thousands of women who have suffered these crimes, in silence, a voice. We need to create an environment where women can come forward and report these offenses, without fear of reprisal or retaliation. If this happened to your daughter, sister or wife - would you be questioning her timing, her motives or doubting what she says? We can no longer afford to stay silent. If we remain silent and let men like him get away with these crimes, then we will all be equally complicit and no different from Mr. Tejpal.


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