I Come to Praise Cuomo, Not To Bury Him

Friends, New Yorkers, countrywomen, lend me your sneers. Yes, I come to praise Cuomo, not to bury him.

That might sound strange coming from me, a woman who stood up to bullies and harassers both in person, and on the page in my 30 years as one of the few female columnists during the rough, misogynistic, and male-dominated heyday of NYC tabloids.

That might sound even stranger coming from a woman who was the sole support of my family as a single mom, (I was once down to $50 in the bank!); a woman who was exposed to and fought back against every kind of sexual harassment which was rampant in newsrooms.

That’s why I know what I’m talking about.

It happened to me at the New York Post, the Daily News, and even politically correct world of New York Newsday where I got my start.

Getting a job at Newsday was not just a dream, but a financial lifesaver. One day the editor in chief came to my desk in the open newsroom and said, “Stasi, I want to ask you something. But stand here under the air conditioning duct so I can see your nipples pop.” Silence all around as reporters gaped at us.

Shocked, embarrassed, upset and needing the job badly to support my family, I nonetheless let my anger take over and stood up and said as loud as I could, “Sure, as long as you stand there too so everyone can see your man parts shrink!” Everyone broke out in laughter. He called me a wise-ass and laughed himself. He never dared to bother me again.

At the Daily News, I was once summoned into the editor’s office where he was sitting with all his favorite male reporters. I swear they were even tossing around a football. I walked in and said, “Do you want me?” He looked around slyly at the guys, and smarmed, “Yes I do. How about right here on the desk?”

Enraged, but pretending to join in on the joke, I swept my hand over his desk, dumped everything onto the floor, and said, “OK, Boss. Let’s go! Right here.” The football morons all started laughing, and the editor reluctantly did the same. I walked out. I was fired a month later.

At the New York Post, a legendary (and drunk) columnist came up to me while I was kicking the never-working copier. He leaned right against me and said, “Let me ask you a question, Stasi. Why will a woman give you a blowjob, but not use your toothbrush in the morning?”

I shoved him off me and said, “Jesus Christ! If you smelled your breath, you’d rather give someone a blowjob than used your toothbrush too!” I don’t know if he ever annoyed the crap out of anyone else, but I know he never bothered me again.

I’m not even beginning to imply that women have to handle horrific, disgusting masters of the universe, (or maybe I should call them “masturbaters of the universe”), by one-upping these jerks, or by being as crude and rough as they are. No. That’s why God invented HR people. That’s why Cuomo’s aide, Charlotte Bennett, was transferred out of his way shortly after she reported his stupid, crude and totally inappropriate remarks; remarks made to a young, very vulnerable, sexual-assault survivor fresh out of college. Horrible.

He was completely wrong, numb, dumb and his his excuse is inexcusable. But she requested a transfer and got one, which was exactly the right action to take.

The case of Lindsey Boylan, who wrote of her experience with Cuomo in Medium, was different. She was a married woman in her thirties who stayed on the job for three years. A woman with her work experience and abilities should never have demurred under that kind of alleged harassment. She could have walked and told the world there and then why she was walking away from a dream job under an abusive boss. But she didn’t let the public in on her allegations. Not until she was running for office herself.

She also didn’t mention that fact in the article itself that she is now running for Manhattan Borough President, after losing a primary for congress last year. The publicity has put her front and center. If she couldn’t stand up for herself against a bully, why should we assume she could stand up for the rest of us?

She also didn’t mention, as the New York Post reported, “According to an internal memo from September of that year, three black employees went to state human resources officials accusing Boylan, who is white, of being a bully,” and treating them like children. Also missing from her essay as reported by the Post was that when she was confronted about these and other allegations of her alleged misconduct and harassment of co-workers, as well as unreconciled travel expenses of $8,000, she voluntarily resigned. Then she asked for her job back.

Now, to the governor. Why would I praise him rather than pile onto his premature burial mound with everyone else?

I’ve known Andrew Cuomo for many years. He is brilliant, tough and yes, a bully. You don’t get things done in this tough-ass state without being a bully. Terrible but true.

He is also a big flirt who loves pretty women, and never fails to compliment in ways that are now considered very wrong. He is always ready to awkwardly joke in ways that are very naive. He’s a powerful man, but not a pig.

Believe me, I’ve known pigs.

Before this scandal erupted, he was trying to put out another political dumpster fire concerning how he and his staff underreported Covid-related nursing home deaths. Let’s be clear: They did not under-report Covid deaths in the state, they instead counted nursing home patients who died in hospitals as hospital deaths, not nursing home deaths as other states had done.

How did we so quickly forget what kind of panic and terror the sudden threat of Covid-19 was to every person in the state; what it must have been like for the governor and his staff to try to figure out how to set up temporary hospitals overnight for the thousands of sick and dying, to set up testing sites, to temporarily close down businesses, while attempting to get vital and life-saving PPE to frontline workers? This all was happening as hospital personnel were down to covering themselves in plastic bags do to lack of PPE?

Now political opponents, knee-jerk liberals and conservatives alike, are calling for his head.

How quickly we forget that Governor Cuomo was the only one who stood up to the world’s biggest bully, President Donald Trump, when he tried to hold our state hostage during the truly terrifying first months of the pandemic. Governor Cuomo was the one of the most trusted people in America during that time, and his daily Covid briefings made us all feel, if not, safe, then at least a bit safer. By April 28, 2020, the rate of positivity in New York State for those tested was 31 percent. For God’s sake, there were refrigerated trucks behind every hospital to store the dead.

Miraculously, by October 11th, due to his strict measures, quarantine mandates and closures, he’d brought the positivity rate in New York to under one percent. OK, because of holiday gatherings, the rate of positivity jumped back up to 6.14% by January 15, but it’s been back down in the last weeks to between 2.82% and 3.58%.

This is a governor, too, who managed the other “impossible” feat in NYC. He got the Second Avenue Subway built in record time after decades of unfulfilled promises by other politicians. The Second Avenue subway, incidentally, had been promised and not delivered since at least 1967!

Oh, and then there was the 2011 Marriage Equality Act, which introduced same-sex marriage to New York state, and the 2014 Compassionate Care Act, which legalized medical marijuana.

He got the Mother Cabrini statue built in six months, (full disclosure: I was on the commission), after his arch-enemy’s wife, Chirlane McCray, refused to include Cabrini, (who built over 65 orphanages, hospitals and shelters), in her “She Built New York,” project. No statue in McCray’s project has yet to be erected.

No doubt that Andrew Cuomo is a well-known equal opportunity bully, an inappropriate flirt, a numbskull when it comes to not-funny teasing, and certainly the enemy of many.

He’s far from perfect, but he has been the perfect person that New York needed and continues to need during this, the worst time in modern history.

Let’s not throw out a good governor out with the bad bathwater.