When Harvey Weinstein was accused by some 80 women of sexual abuse and assault in fall 2017, Hollywood and the corporate media were shocked and scandalized. How could Weinstein, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, have done this for so long while rubbing shoulders with political and media elites in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and no one said anything?
The Catholic world had a similar shock in summer 2018, when former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was credibly accused of sexual assault and resigned from the College of Cardinals. How could McCarrick, the most powerful prelate in the American Catholic Church and the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., have repeatedly sexually assaulted boys and seminarians for decades? How could no outsiders have known? Why did no one say anything?
A year later, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges and the same melodrama played out. Epstein was friends with the most powerful people in the world. There were all these pictures of him with the Clintons and Donald Trump and Prince Andrew. Epstein was convicted on similar charges in 2008, for crying out loud. If he had been sexually trafficking underage girls for decades, surely all these powerful people knew about it, right?
Now comes New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior toward at least 11 young women. Once again, everyone is shocked and scandalized. How could this celebrated Democratic governor, whom leftist media shamelessly elevated for the past year-and-a-half, who won an Emmy last year for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, whose name among leftist elites had become synonymous with competent leadership and even-handedness and political brilliance, have all along been this creepy, groping misogynist?
How indeed. The truth about Cuomo is much the same as the truth about Weinstein, McCarrick, and Epstein. Everyone knew. No one cared. No one said anything until forced to. Then the feigned shock and outrage, the concern about the treatment of women, the hand-wringing and Me Too-ing, the performances on social media.
Cuomo will be swept away now, with some dispatch. We will hear grave monologues from cable news hosts and read serious columns at The New York Times and Washington Post about what all this means.
Jennifer Rubin will pretend she never once tweeted obsequious nonsense about Cuomo during the worst months of the lockdowns. Brian Stelter and Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace will all nod and purse their lips and say how important it is that Cuomo is being held accountable, what a step forward it is for women. They will suggest that in fact it speaks to the media’s moral uprightness — and perhaps to their own — that all this came out and in the end forced a bad man out of public office.
Not one of them will acknowledge their roles in elevating Cuomo or turning a blind eye to what they all surely knew had been happening for years and years to young women who worked for him. CNN’s Chris Cuomo will almost certainly not be fired, or even censured, despite having actively helped his older brother try to sweep all this under the rug. His buddy Don Lemon will never ask him about it on air, and neither will anyone else at CNN.
Why? Because none of these people really care. As long as sexual harassment, assault, abuse, even the sex trafficking of underage girls stays quiet, then they stay quiet, too.
They don’t even care about people dying. Cuomo should have been run out of office last year for his mishandling of the pandemic after he ordered COVID-positive seniors into nursing homes, causing the virus to spread among the most vulnerable and thousands to die. But no one in corporate media would so much as raise the issue without rolling their eyes and dismissing it as a political stunt by Republicans to smear the left’s favorite pandemic governor.
Enough with the feigned outrage and furrowed brows. It’s time our political and media elite just come clean and admit they don’t care about any of this, that they’re okay with even the worst sort of behavior from their leaders. If those leaders can be relied upon to genuflect to leftist pieties, espouse woke opinions, and enact leftist policies, they can do whatever they want — so long as they keep it quiet.