Me too?
Oh, Lord, this is going to be a narrow wire to walk. Sexual harassment is one of the worst things going on in this country these days,
but …
I know, I know, saying “but” almost negates the original context.
But things have gotten completely out of control, and it started with what happened to Al Franken. He was accused of sexually harassing a woman who was part of a USO trip to entertain the troops in the Middle East, and just like that, he was gone.
It didn’t matter that the woman was a regular Fox News contributor and later bragged about how she “got” Franken. It didn’t even matter that other people along on the trip didn’t see the incident the same way she did. It didn’t even matter that Franken asked for an investigation.
He was gone, thanks mostly to Democrats like Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
A woman said it, so it must be true.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump can make the most vile statements and Republicans say, “Oh, that’s just locker-room talk.”
Then there’s Andrew Cuomo. Less than a year ago he was an American hero, the person who at 11 a.m. every day told people the truth about the Coronavirus and what we needed to do about it. Our president lied and lied every day, and the third-term governor of New York gave us the truth.
Trump told people face masks were optional and if they didn’t feel like staying at home, they shouldn’t. Trump made racist remarks about the virus — “the “China virus” — and Cuomo kept calm.
So of course he had to go.
He did make some mistakes, misclassifying nursing-home deaths among them, but people didn’t get worked up about it until the accusations of sexual harassment started. The strange thing about it has been that every couple of days that go by without Cuomo surrendering seem to bring another accuser.
Very few of these accusations were witnessed, which may or may not mean anything. Being a sexual harasser doesn’t mean you’re stupid enough to have witnesses. It doesn’t mean Cuomo is innocent, but neither does it mean he’s guilty.
With apologizes to Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, it would be a mistake for Cuomo to resign before an official investigation can be convened. We cannot continue letting accusations equal convictions.
That’s not the way we do things in this country.