Andrew cuomo and the corruption of power | thearticle

This week we have had at least one notable illustration of Lord Acton’s much misquoted maxim about the corrupting effect of power. Andrew Cuomo, the long-serving Governor of New York, has

been investigated by his own attorney general, Letitia James, on allegations of sexual assault and harassment by 11 different women. Her detailed report has found against him. Both New York

senators and most state representatives in Congress  have called for his resignation. The state legislature has begun impeachment proceedings and in Albany County he faces a likely criminal

prosecution. The game is up for the Governor. For the sake of the Empire State and the Democratic Party, Cuomo must go. Yet he shows no sign of doing so. Instead, Cuomo — the most prominent

Italian-American in US politics, often touted as a presidential candidate — issued a video statement in which he not only denied all the accusations, but depicted himself as the victim. Not

the 63-year-old Governor, who has enjoyed three terms in office and was evidently counting on a fourth, but his accusers, who were half his age, are the implied villains of the case.  It was

they, it seemed, who had all misunderstood his flirtatious words and tactile behaviour (which included groping). _Mamma mia, _his beloved mother, had apparently taught him to express love

by touching people’s faces — and his lawyer produced footage of him doing precisely that to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. As for ordering one of his named accusers, Charlotte Bennett, to

do twenty press-ups on his office floor? He was empathising with her suffering as a victim of sexual assault, which reminded him of his own pain when told of a similar ordeal by an unnamed

member of his own family. In other words, it was all about him.  An excellent analysis of “Cuomo the Mad King of New York” by John Podhoretz, the editor of _Commentary _magazine, can be

found here. As Podhoretz points out, all the actors in this drama are Democrats. His colleague, ally and rival Joe Biden has said that Cuomo must resign if the charges are proven — by which

we must presume the President means proven in a court of law. (How much more evidence does he need?) The fact that even the attorney general who investigated him and those who are likely to

prosecute him are all Democrats points to an inconvenient truth: New York is a one-party state. Their desire to be rid of Cuomo is motivated by damage limitation, so that life for the

Democratic oligarchy can go on as before. So: back to Acton (_pictured below_). What was it precisely that the Victorian polymath had to say about power? “Power tends to corrupt and absolute

power corrupts absolutely.” This, his most famous quotation, dates from 1887, but did not appear for another three decades, long after his death. Lord Acton published little in his

lifetime; though he was what we might call a public intellectual, much of his reputation was owed to his private conversation and correspondence. It was in a letter to his friend Bishop

Creighton, included in a posthumous collection of essays, that the immortal words appeared. But what did he mean, and do they apply to men like Cuomo? The context is, as always,

illuminating. Acton was taking issue with Creighton on the question of whether historians should hold those they study to account for their actions. The bishop thought popes and kings should

be judged more leniently than lesser beings; the baron thought the opposite. “Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and

absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of

corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.” It is not irrelevant to observe that Acton and Creighton were both distinguished

historians, who held chairs at Cambridge; Acton founded the Cambridge Modern History and Creighton was the first editor of the _English Historical Review. _They were also both Christians, of

course: Creighton an Anglican bishop, Acton a Catholic — and a liberal. To be a liberal Catholic was, after the First Vatican Council in 1870, an oxymoron: Pope Pius IX had condemned

liberalism as a dangerous heresy. Acton, who had dedicated his life to the grand project of a _History of Liberty, _found himself condemned by his own Church. The inner conflict between

liberty and authority that this generated explains the vehemence with which he condemns the “certainty of corruption by authority”. Hence, too, the passion with which Acton insisted that he

would never spare a bad king or pope: “I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science.” Andrew Cuomo

is not the Pope in Rome, but the Governor of New York. Unlike the successor of St Peter, he does not exercise moral authority _ex officio. _Yet, like any elected politician, by virtue of

his office he is expected to set an example of decency and probity. Indeed, all such representatives swear an oath to do so. Cuomo has manifestly failed to uphold the standards expected of

and implied by leadership in a democracy. He therefore has a duty to resign, regardless of whether or not he is ever brought to trial. Acton was probably thinking of popes when he wrote that

the office does not sanctify the holder, but the converse applies: any office, especially the papal one, may be damaged by a corrupt incumbent. It is equally true of secular statesmen that

their misconduct can bring their office into disrepute.  That is what has happened in the case of Cuomo. If he has any remaining shred of integrity, he will pack his bags and hand over his

office to his Lieutenant Governor, Kathy Hochul. Great men may or may not be “almost always” bad men, as Acton avers, but Andrew Cuomo is living proof that a man who is anything but great

may yet be bad. If he were to resign now, he would at least have done the decent thing for once in his career. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to

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