Another Cuomo Bites the Dust?

The usually astute Michael Tomasky is lost in the fog of Andrew Cuomo.

Professionally, Tomasky has seen better days: an amiable left-of-center Democrat and industrious political reporter whose coverage of Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign was excellent, he still seems shell-shocked at Mike Bloomberg's fluke mayoral victory over Mark Green last November.

Also, like many inferior pundits?The New Yorker's older Hendrik Hertzberg would benefit from Tomasky's tutelage; instead he dashes off Robert Shrum-influenced screeds?the New York columnist is still smarting from President Bush's victory over Al Gore 16 months ago. In addition, Tomasky's once-regular New York forum now appears only sporadically. This may have nothing at all to do with him; the weekly's ditzy editor, Caroline Miller, has similarly stiffed "National Interest" writer Tucker Carlson, preferring to chase the listings magazine Time Out with trivial entertainment and lifestyle content. As a result, Tomasky's been slumming at other publications like The American Prospect and The Nation.

Take his gung-ho piece about hothead Andrew Cuomo, "The Action Figure," in New York's April 29 issue. The former Bill Clinton cabinet member, who's been running for New York's governorship for at least three years, notoriously blasted incumbent George Pataki on April 17 for his conduct after the Sept. 11 destruction of the World Trade Center. On a bus trip from Utica to Buffalo, the grade-A opportunist told reporters: "There was one leader for 9/11: it was Rudy Giuliani. If it defined George Pataki, it defined George Pataki as not being the leader. He stood behind the leader. He held the leader's coat. He was a great assistant to the leader. But he was not a leader."

Giuliani, who endorsed Cuomo's father over Pataki in 1994, was quick to strike back, saying: "I held his coat as often as he held mine. We were inseparable... If he fights the campaign with this strategy, George Pataki should win unanimously. I don't get it."

Pataki's response was more muted; he obviously didn't want to get into a politically charged argument with his probable opponent. (Cuomo first has to defeat comptroller Carl McCall, whose campaign, until this point, has been lackluster despite receiving endorsements from numerous black leaders, like the blustery Rep. Charles Rangel.) Pataki simply said: "I'm just stunned by the comments. There are things I could say. I don't think it's appropriate. I think it's just very sad."

Double-talk, of course. The Pataki campaign, already way ahead of both Cuomo's and McCall's in the polls (54-30 and 56-29 percent, respectively, in an April 18 Quinnipiac survey), was handed a gift-wrapped gaffe from the never-elected Andrew, one that enraged not only Republicans but New York City Democrats and unions as well. The Bridge and Tunnel Officers Benevolent Association released this statement: "Perhaps Andrew Cuomo should attend some of the funerals of our fallen heroes so he would understand that using Sept. 11 as a political sound bite is a disgusting and despicable act."

Denis Hughes, president of New York's two-million-member AFL-CIO, and a backer of both Hillary Clinton and Gore in 2000, added that he had "nothing but admiration for the way Gov. Pataki handled this."

Finally, an April 19 editorial in The New York Times, while throwing a few jabs at Pataki, said: "Mr. Giuliani's role during those days has made him an international celebrity. Any politician would have wanted that opportunity to be the city's leader then, and the fact that Mr. Pataki showed no jealousy about his subsidiary role seemed to be the sign of real maturity, and a perfect sense of priorities. When voters elect a leader, they are looking for a whole panoply of useful qualities. One of them is an ability to sense when an occasion is about something greater than yourself. Mr. Pataki demonstrated that part of leadership on Sept. 11. Mr. Cuomo has yet to demonstrate it during this campaign."

But Tomasky, who makes the valid point that Pataki is a slowpoke who hasn't distinguished himself with coherent plans to rebuild downtown, and acknowledges that Cuomo made a "dumb mistake" in his remarks about the Governor, misses the point in his Go, Andy! column. He's hoping, if not outright predicting, that citizens will choose the younger Cuomo's liberal platform over Pataki's moderate Republican set of issues, rather than vote on the basis of emotion. That's just too cerebral: the events of Sept. 11 immediately became the new "third rail" of American politics, especially in New York. Tomasky enthuses: "This guy has got something. He's not warm and soulful, like Bill Clinton [yikes!]; he's full of sharp edges. But the edges are part of his energy, and if there's one quality that just explodes out of him, it's energy."

So what? Republican Bret Schundler, who was trounced in last fall's New Jersey gubernatorial election (another political victim of 9/11 in that the White House couldn't campaign for him as expected), was an "energy" machine, filled with innovative ideas for the state, and it got him nowhere against the Democratic hack Jim McGreevey. (I wonder if the new governor's plan to hike property taxes will hurt the slippery Robert Torricelli?as Bill Bradley was by Jim Florio in 1990?in his reelection bid this November.)

Ideology has clouded Tomasky's usually clear political instincts. He claims Andrew Cuomo is a "complicated" pol: I say he's a self-aggrandizing brat who's shamelessly parlayed his Kennedy connections (his wife is one of Bobby's daughters) and Clinton White House tenure to build a campaign war chest.

About the only thing positive I can ascribe to scurvy Andy is his obvious devotion to St. Mario: his desire to avenge his father's '94 defeat to Pataki doesn't necessarily qualify him for office, but the family loyalty is admirable.

One more excerpt from Tomasky's column that shows he's not thinking clearly: "Conventional wisdom says the worst thing a candidate can be is complicated. Think Al Gore here. [Frankly, I think "liar" when Gore's name comes up.] It's uncomplicated that the voters want, or so the media high priests tell us [Who are those "media high priests," Mike? What about naming names?]; people without scars, burdens, or doubts (usually these also happen to be politicians who can't sustain an unscripted thought past three sentences, which is somehow considered a plus). Think Mike Bloomberg, George Bush, and, of course, George Pataki."

So Bloomberg, a novice politician who's also a brilliant business entrepreneur, is a dummy? And Bush, who doesn't write or speak as well as many journalists (and that's what counts, after all, in measuring intelligence) but nonetheless upset the popular Ann Richards for the Texas governorship in '94, doesn't have anything on the ball? As for Pataki, he may shamelessly pander to untapped (for a Republican) constituencies for votes, and harbor totally unrealistic hopes of replacing Dick Cheney in Bush's 2004 campaign, but the man's not stupid.

Neither is Tomasky, even though this particular column, written in pique, despair or frustration, temporarily (I hope) puts him in the penalty box with real political dunces like Eric Alterman, Eleanor Clift, Thomas Oliphant and Robert Kuttner.

That's an ugly crowd to hang out with, Mike. Snap out of it.

A Jovial Yet Melancholy Reunion

A long time ago, in the days of Father Knows Best and Mr. Ed, when everyone in my extended clan was still alive?excepting my grandfather, for example, who was born in 1868?Uncle Pete and Aunt Peggy would often drive from Douglaston to Huntington for a day with the Smitty family. It was always a raucous affair, with nine kids of varying ages and interests exploring the woods behind our house; taking Boy Scout knives to further decorate the "Initial Tree" across from the McGuire household; playing touch football on the street; or, if it was winter, whizzing down a hill on those metal flying saucers. Bern?who until Veronica was born was the only female offspring in the family since my mother was born in 1917?got special treatment from Mom. Mom'd always claim it was much easier having five boys, but was delighted to have a little girl to fuss over, giving her charms for a bracelet, Catholic totems from her own childhood and costume jewelry.

Mom, Pete's older sister, would prepare a giant casserole for dinner?usually "American chop suey" or "Cataldo," two dishes she dreamed up that were loaded with ground beef, mozzarella, spaghetti and canned tomatoes?keeping an eye on the stove while my dad would mix Manhattans and martinis, or open cans of Rheingold, for the adults. Living in Queens, my cousins were street-smart, more familiar with the city's subways and exotica like egg creams than my four brothers and me, who grew up in a sort of Leave It to Beaver neighborhood, where all 14 houses were exactly the same and parents would yell their kids' name from the doorstep when it was suppertime.

In reality, I guess, there was a touch of Peyton Place in the then-developing village of Huntington, but whatever mischief occurred was kept under wraps. In fact, of all the families on LaRue Dr., just one couple was divorced, and that in itself was a mini-scandal. I do remember one morning in '64 when one of the neighbors' VWs inadvertently rolled down to the bottom of the hill during the night. At least that was the public story: we always thought there was something more suspicious and dark about the incident. It just had to involve booze and adultery.

The Howards had a jet-black dog named Thunder who was mean and chased every car that came into his radar. When Thunder attacked a beehive one beastly hot summer day, and wound up with about 100 yellow-jackets in his belly, meeting a painful demise, there wasn't a communal outbreak of mourning.

As I got a bit older traces of reality surfaced. Next door to us was a fairly dysfunctional family. The mother was an unkempt recluse; the father a Pearl Harbor survivor, but now a drunk who never tired of showing me his sword from his World War II days; and one of the kids a sweet & loose chick whom I'd hang out with on slow summer days, which always raised my mother's hackles. Ellen was a suburban hippie with a greaser twist, and I guess she was putting the moves on me, but at 12, that was beyond my comprehension. These days, an "affair" between a preteen and a 17-year-old is a pretty common way to kill time.

One day in '67, I sang the newly released "A Day in the Life," to her, claiming it was my own song, and she was just blown away. I fessed up immediately after, and she was kind of pissed, but we still played poker and gabbed the rest of the afternoon. One day, about a year later, Ellen disappeared; knocked up by a biker asshole who married and left her not long after the child was born.

But back to the 21st century.

My older brothers and I had dinner at the Upper East Side's Cafe Trevi?a family canteen?with our cousins one night last week, the first time we'd seen them since Sept. 11. There was a lot of nostalgia at first, inquiries about Pete and Peg's health, chatter about the baseball and soccer games of our respective children, but the evening grew more serious by the time appetizers arrived. Steve, a police officer, was at Ground Zero for a spell and then dispatched to Staten Island, where the debris is hauled. He was visibly pained when detailing the daily search through rubble, finding bones, wallets, photos and more bones.

Phil, a veteran of the FDNY for more than 20 years, was dressed in a splendid uniform?he had to leave early for a memorial service?and was even more in the thick of WTC chaos. He'd had a shoulder operation the day before the attacks, but immediately left his Long Island home for the disaster site upon hearing the news. Normally a gregarious fellow, my cousin?like so many other firemen, I imagine?was very subdued during the dinner. He spoke tentatively, like a war veteran, of the two months following the massacre, describing the most awful event of his life. Although curious, we didn't press him too much: Phil, now in his 40s, lost scores of friends and couldn't even count the number of funerals he attended. He now counsels other members of the FDNY fraternity, trying to make as much sense of a bad situation as possible.

Although it was a terrific reunion, and mostly filled with funny stories from the old days, seen in a different perspective now that we're all adults, the short conversation of Sept. 11 was sobering. You could tell how proud Bern and Ronnie were of their older brothers. The Smitty boys were too.

Watching the Defectives

After spending several hours this past weekend listening to Elvis Costello's new CD When I Was Cruel, my cynicism from reading rave reviews (including a front-page piece in the largely invisible New York Observer) was confirmed. The album bites. And why would anyone expect anything different? Costello, one of the top songwriters and performers from '77-'83?a long stretch of time?doesn't have the juice, doesn't have the hunger that made his first five or six recordings so vital. I remember seeing him in a small DC hall back in '78, spitting out blistering versions of "No Action," "Lipstick Vogue" and the as-yet unreleased "Accidents Will Happen," and then cutting short the set after 45 minutes with an undoubtedly premeditated "Piss off!"

You can't recapture that near-genius of youth, and I'll bet Costello, who's giving interviews to promote When I Was Cruel, must be snickering at the adoring critics who claim he's reclaimed his roots. Read this snippet from Jeffrey Eugenides' appalling Observer story and you'll see what I mean: "I came late to Elvis Costello. In college, when the dorm emptied out on the night of the Attractions concert, I stayed in my room, listening to Eric Dolphy. My friends all had Elvis Costello records, and though there were songs on them I loved, I didn't love the voice singing them. Once you've acquired a taste for something, it's difficult to explain what put you off at first. Try to remember, say, the bitterness of beer. Or the fishiness of fish... [When I Was Cruel is] a return to origins, stripped-down and loaded with hard-charging rhythms that bring back the old New Wave."

Sure thing. If Eugenides didn't care for Costello's voice 25 years ago (like all those morons a decade earlier who complained about the way Bob Dylan sang), couldn't feel the earthquake sound in This Year's Model or Armed Forces, he mustn't have had a pulse. Or was listening to the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac along with Eric Dolphy.

I'm not exactly current with today's rock 'n' roll heroes?although Junior does his best to keep me informed?but there's one song from this year that I've played six times in a row, six days in a row. I take no pleasure in contradicting my friend Spencer Ackerman, but Hank Williams III's cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" (from Williams' Lovesick, Broke & Driftin') is a killer. Spencer wrote a short review for New York Press of a Springsteen tribute album: "Hank Williams III does 'Atlantic City,' a hoedown so absolutely awful that out of charity I assume it's meant to laugh at anyone who'd look for salvation in a rock song."

Actually, Williams' version is so far superior to Springsteen's reverent performance that you wish the Jersey millionaire would stop reading Steinbeck. He does rollick through the first half of the song, a jaunty reading of the depressing lyrics that hardly sets the listener up for his dirge-like completion.

But when the country music scion (far superior to his father, although a pale shadow of the first Hank) mournfully sings (skipping a few lines, changing some words), "Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold/but with you forever I'll stay.../Now, I been lookin' for a job, but it's hard to find/Down here it's just winners and losers.../So, honey, last night I met this guy and I'm gonna do a favor for him/I guess ev'rything dies, baby, that's a fact/But maybe ev'rything that dies someday comes back/Put your hair up nice and sit up pretty/And meet me tonight in Atlantic City/Meet me tonight in Atlantic City/Meet me tonight...in Atlantic City."

I'd say Springsteen took notice.

No Jinx Last Week

Who's the leader of the band? Derek Lowe.

April 29

Send comments to [MUG1988@aol.com](mailto://mug1988@aol.com) or fax to 244-9864.