Andrew Cuomo doesn’t deserve a second chance

In The Dark Knight, the only Batman movie I’ve ever watched and therefore the best one, Harvey Dent says, ‘You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.’

At this point in the Andrew Cuomo saga, most Americans have realized that the disgraced former governor of New York is just that — a villain. Just don’t tell Cuomo or his amen chorus of sycophantic dead-enders.

This week, the suburban tabloid Newsday published an article by David H. Pikus headlined, ‘Ousting Cuomo disenfranchised NY voters’. Thankfully for Pikus, Cuomo approved of his obsequious ass-kissery. The ex-Emmy award winner retweeted the puff piece and added, ‘This was politics. Every step of the way.’

The slobbering column hit all of the sociopath’s favorite talking points: his political downfall was a coup, he is a victim of cancel culture, New York has lost its ‘superlatively effective governor.’

It makes sense that Pikus whipped up this execrable propaganda for his fallen hero. After all, he has a history of trying to help the fortunate son.

NY1’s Zack Fink noted, ‘In March, the author of this op-ed, David Pikus, wrote an email to the Cuomo family calling allegations by [Charlotte Bennett] “potential dynamite.” He added that his son graduated Hamilton with Bennett, and he can ask his son to look into whether their classmates “could be helpful.”’

Charlotte Bennett replied to Fink’s tweet: ‘The outreach from one particular Hamilton student was so creepy, unsettling & persistent that someone notified both me & the Hamilton administration. The student had reached out to many different people in my network. This is why people rarely come forward.’

Pikus wasn’t the only family liegeman who used intimidation tactics in Cuomo’s failed attempt to hang on, like an indicted mob boss putting out contracts on the witnesses against him.

In a New York magazine article titled ‘Abuse and Power,’ Rebecca Traister writes, ‘Like the women Harvey [Weinstein] empowered at his movie companies, many high up in Cuomo’s employ repeat and amplify the kinds of abuses that begin with the boss. Most people I spoke to about their relationships with the governor have memories of being yelled at, threatened, or insulted by senior female colleagues, especially Melissa DeRosa.’

DeRosa, the daughter of a top Albany lobbyist, is mentioned a mere 187 times in the New York attorney general’s report on Andrew Cuomo. While Cuomo might have been the most recognizable and smug bully in New York State, he was far from a lone wolf. It takes a village to enable — and hide — this many gross abuses of power.

These bullies are or were public servants and New Yorkers deserve a full accounting of their despicable behavior. Cuomo needed assistance (read: ghostwriting) with his narcissistic tome on inspired leadership. Even more importantly he needed help hiding the real number of nursing home deaths on his watch. Which is one of many reasons why the legislature in Albany should have impeached the brother of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, who is now, ironically enough, also embroiled in his own long-rumored sexual harassment scandal (involving his admitted groping of his former producer at ABC News).

Instead, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie dropped the impeachment investigation once Cuomo announced his resignation. Part of Heastie’s excuse for his cowardly cop-out was that he had constitutional concerns about impeaching a governor who had already left office.

Oddly, Heastie did not have these concerns when Democrats were impeaching former President Trump after he had left office earlier this year.

In fact, in a letter to Congress, Heastie wrote, ‘I stand with my Assembly Majority colleagues in urging Congress to take immediate action to impeach and remove the president from office. We must set the precedent that attempting to overturn the will of the American people cannot and will not be tolerated. Nor will threats against the New York State Capitol and the hard- working New Yorkers who come to work here every day.’

So to recap, Heastie does not think the Constitution authorizes the legislature to impeach and remove an elected official who is no longer in office — unless that elected official is Orange Man Bad. Got it.

When the spineless speaker announced last month that his Judiciary Committee would not even release a report on its findings, the backlash was swift.

Like any feckless politician, Heastie reversed course and tried to assuage his critics by throwing them a bone: the Cuomo impeachment panel would produce a ‘public report’. That report is expected to drop next week, probably on Friday, to minimize embarrassment for the legend in his own mind.

But a public report of the findings against the former governor is not the same as a televised impeachment trial. Not even close.

For months during the pandemic, Cuomo lapped up the media’s praise. The man loves the sound of his own voice and never misses an opportunity to drone on and on in front of a microphone, often while wearing a cool leather bomber jacket.

Yet finally, right when the blowhard had something we all wanted to hear, Heastie handed his fellow Democrat a free get-out-of-media-scrutiny pass.

The women who bravely came forward to accuse the preening, sanctimonious governor deserve to see Cuomo answer for his behavior. Instead the families who lost loved ones in nursing homes had to watch as he cashed in on his $5.1 million book deal. Worse, they had to endure his cringeworthy comedy sketches on CNN with his little brother and a giant Q-Tip.

But now these victims and their survivors won’t see Chris’s big bro being grilled live, under oath, on their television screens. The world stage was a perfect spot for Cuomo when he was the toast of the town. It is less appealing now that he is no longer America’s boyfriend and all the ‘Cuomosexuals’ have gone missing.

Lindsey Boylan first came forward with sexual harassment accusations against the governor in December 2020. It has been almost a full year now, and sadly the coverage of Cuomo has dissipated.

Shame on Speaker Heastie for his brooming of the charges. He gave Cuomo a gift by ending his misery so swiftly. Now, instead of answering for his behavior, the megalomaniac is at a friend’s house in the Hamptons tweeting out flattering articles about himself and testing the waters for a comeback.

The former governor should be at the center of an embarrassing, drawn out impeachment circus right about now. That is what a clownish blowhard like Andrew Cuomo so rightly deserves.