Five full years have slipped by since then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, now forever Client 9, self-immolated — to be succeeded by the eternally irrepressible David Paterson.
God, what a pair.
God, what a time.
One full gubernatorial term of titanic temper tantrums and harlot hijinks; of executive entropy and legislative treachery — of coups, counter-coups and buffoonery so exquisite that it just naturally devolved into a running “Saturday Night Live” skit.
Humiliating for all involved, perhaps — but, man, what fun for everybody else.
Then the adults entered the room — dour and disciplined and volubly determined to restore dignity to Albany, a daunting task.
Two years and two months have passed since the ascendancy of Andrew Mark Cuomo, and the laugh track has indeed been switched off. Budgets are passing on time; the Legislature is docile in most other respects; the easy-lift campaign promises largely have been redeemed; no one speaks out of turn — and Cuomo himself will never, ever, be confused with his immediate predecessors.
Still, docility shouldn’t be confused with dignity, and the absence of public dysfunction doesn’t mean that it’s not earnestly bubbling away just beneath the surface.
For Albany remains Albany; its corrupt appetites run deep, as does the rot.
Cuomo, to be sure, has taken charge. He runs an iron-fisted government, without even the pretense of a velvet glove.
Just ask poor Mike Fayette about that.
A civil engineer for the state Department of Transportation’s Adirondack region, Fayette last year sat down with a local newspaper reporter to praise the administration’s response to Hurricane Irene in 2011.
Alas, he had spoken without official, advance permission — and so the department promptly pulverized his 30-year career. And when Fayette complained, Director of State Operations Howard Glaser, one of the most powerful men in the government, responded by reading the engineer’s personnel file — out loud and live — on an Albany radio station.
That’s the iron fist in action.
For sure, Andrew Cuomo is not a public intellectual in the Jeffersonian, or even Wilsonian, sense. No shame there; who is?
But he has, in the past, shown a nuanced appreciation of the proper role of the elected official in a constitutional republic — that is, to serve the law in its majesty, not merely to manipulate it in the service of politics or base self-interest.
This seemed to set him apart, in the New York context at least.
But there was scant subtlety in Cuomo’s no-debate-allowed imposition of that gun-control law in January — nor, more to the point, much respect for constitutional principles.
The people, and their representatives, are meant to have a voice in the legislative process — but there were no hearings, no deliberation and no effective dissent before the hammer came down.
Nor did the Bill of Rights get much respect. For better or for worse, the US Supreme Court has been liberalizing gun law, not the opposite, and sooner or later New York is going to have to come to terms with this trend.
Meanwhile, Cuomo’s overarching campaign promises — a corruption-free, more representative government; a revitalized economy; a reformed civil service; meaningful tax relief and so on — remain elusive goals. If goals is the correct word.
Yes, Cuomo Co. sent out the clowns on Day One. But hilarity gave way to hubris, and absurdity to arrogance — and then, it seems, inertia settled in.
Nobody really wants a return of the Eliot David show — but it’s hard not to miss ’em just a little bit.
And who would ever have though that?