“Chris Cuomo Sexually Harassed Me. I Hope He’ll Use His Power to Make Change.” (New York Times, today):
“Now that I think of it … I am ashamed,” read the subject line of a 2005 email Mr. Cuomo wrote me, one hour after he sexually harassed me at a going-away party for an ABC colleague. At the time, I was the executive producer of an ABC entertainment special, but I was Mr. Cuomo’s executive producer at “Primetime Live” just before that. I was at the party with my husband, who sat behind me on an ottoman sipping his Diet Coke as I spoke with work friends. When Mr. Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar, he walked toward me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock.
“I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss,” he said to me with a kind of cocky arrogance. “No you can’t,” I said, pushing him off me at the chest while stepping back, revealing my husband, who had seen the entire episode at close range. We quickly left.
What had been a private email is now public:
Note the domain for both sender and recipient… the super wholesome disney.com!
Separately, whatever your opinion of these allegations and the email between two people within the Happiest Place on Earth, isn’t it safe to say that there is no better family in New York State? Voters kept electing Cuomos to lead them and they kept tuning into CNN to watch Chris Cuomo. Maybe Chris and Andrew Cuomo, flawed though they may be, are as good as New Yorkers can get.
Related:
From earlier this month at Magic Kingdom, Orlando …
Old women turn bitter once they’re no longer good looking enough to merit attention.
I loved this at the end of the article:
“As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual in nature. It happened 16 years ago in a public setting when she was a top executive at ABC. I apologized to her then, and I meant it.”
This just makes everything much more confusing. Should we assume that Chris Cuomo has learned in the past 16 years only to grab people’s asses when they’re not top executives? Or that if it had been sexual in nature somehow it would have been much better and not needed an apology? Or that he now just grabs men’s asses (as long as they’re not top executives?) Or that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission? Or that Chris Cuomo was one a big dumb Coumba and is still a big dumb Coumba no matter how much backstage prep. he gets?
Alex: I am not that interested in the specifics of what the Cuomos might have done. What fascinates me is the desire of New Yorkers (and millions of Americans outside of New York) to be guided and shepherded by these guys. New Yorkers wanted Andrew Cuomo to tell them when to leave their apartments, whether to wear a mask, whether to wear a mask outside, when it would be safe to educate children again (is 1.5 years of school closure enough when battling a virus that was killing 80-year-olds?), etc. Like-minded people all across America wanted Chris Cuomo to explain the the entire world to them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuomo_Prime_Time makes it sound as though the main topic was Donald Trump and his purported Russian overlords).
These two guys might be not only the best that New York State can produce, but the best that all of America can produce! Look at how many people signed up to follow them.
@philg: > These two guys might be not only the best that New York State can produce, but the best that all of America can produce! Look at how many people signed up to follow them.
Sometimes I’m too cynical, because I’m not even capable of wondering about that any longer – I expect it now, and having seen these political machines up close and watching how easy it is to coerce and cajole people into following them, I’m filled with anger and despair. If dwell on that it makes me furiously angry and bitter, which are very destructive emotions for me right now.
I got a phone call the other day from a guy I work with and he said: “Every time I talk with you recently you sound better, your voice sounds better and stronger and clearer.” And I said: “Yeah I guess so. I’m a lot clearer minded now because I’m running on a lot of anger. It’s exhausting in another way though.”
He said: “I hope you’re not angry at me.”
I said: “If I was, I’d make sure you knew.”
@Alex Please let go of your anger. Running on anger isn’t good. The best defense against the idiocy of the world is to laugh at it. Don’t let it transform you into a person running on anger.
It wasn’t always, but NY is a one party state and whomever the dems run will win. The rest of NY state that counterbalanced the city has been hollowed out with a high minimum wage and high taxes. So once great manufacturing cities like Poughkeepsie, once home to a big GE manufacturing plant, are now close to abandoned with empty homes and overgrown vegetation within 500 yards of the city center. Cuomo is pretty awful but there are far worse out there like Letitia James, who will likely replace Cuomo next year. Her accomplishments as state AG include using taxpayer money to fund a lawsuit against Exxon for global warming (thrown out of court) and the Trump organization for some sort of alleged petty tax violations, so petty that the feds were not interested (underway).