Wednesday, December 01, 2021

SO WAS G. GORDON LIDDY RIGHT, CLYDE?

CNN has suspended Chris Cuomo, and it's about time.
The star CNN anchor Chris Cuomo was suspended indefinitely by the network on Tuesday after new details emerged about his efforts to assist his brother, Andrew M. Cuomo, the former governor of New York, as he faced a cascade of sexual harassment accusations that led to the governor’s resignation.

... thousands of pages of evidence released on Monday by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, revealed that the anchor’s role had been more intimate and involved than previously known.

... At one point, the governor’s former top aide, Melissa DeRosa, asked the anchor if he could check his “sources” about a rumor that Politico was working on an article that included additional accusations. “On it,” Chris Cuomo responded.

Ms. James’s report also included a text from Mr. Cuomo to Ms. DeRosa sent a few days after a woman, Anna Ruch, told The New York Times that Andrew Cuomo had made an unwanted advance toward her at a wedding in New York City. “I have a lead on the wedding girl,” the anchor wrote in the text.
We've known about Chris Cuomo's role as an adviser to his brother on this since May. We've known the sordid details of the then-governor's harassment and assaults since August. Chris Cuomo should have been off the air long ago.

But some people disagree. Here's Clyde Haberman, a longtime reporter for The New York Times and the father of the Times's Maggie Haberman:



We've been here before. In 1996, The Washington Post's Don Olderburg wrote:
"Am I my brother's keeper?"

The question dating back to Cain and Abel resurfaced last week with the disclosure that David Kaczynski, suspecting his older brother, Theodore, of being the Unabomber, turned him in to the FBI. Since then, the younger Kaczynski has been lauded as an ethical role model, his decision praised as an act of selfless courage.

So when radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy referred to him Friday not as a hero who acted in the nation's interest, but rather as a lowly "snitch" who betrayed his brother, some listeners called in steaming with disbelief....

"It violates the taboo against turning on one's family," argues Liddy, the convicted Watergate felon who spent time behind bars rather than turn informant. "He went out and took action which led him to believe his brother may be the Unabomber -- and then turned his brother in."

Liddy adds that if he had a brother, he would not betray him under the same circumstances. "I would have gone up there and said, Listen, I don't know if you are this guy or not. If you are, you can issue all the damn manifestos you want. But don't you hurt anybody else -- or I'll come up and whip your {butt}.'"
Ted Kaczinski killed or maimed many people. Andrew Cuomo's crimes obviously don't rise to that level. But they're not nothing. The attorney general's office reported,
After nearly five months, the investigators concluded that Governor Cuomo did sexually harass multiple women — including former and current state employees — by engaging in unwanted groping, kissing, and hugging, and making inappropriate comments. Further, the governor and his senior staff took actions to retaliate against at least one former employee for coming forward with her story.
So would Haberman have had "some ambivalence" about turning in a brother who was the Unabomber? Does he agree with G. Gordon Liddy? Or is ambivalence appropriate in cases of forcible groping and career retaliation, but not in cases of maiming and death? Where's the line, Clyde?

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