When those involuntarily kissed on the cheek at a wedding (between chin and cheekbone) became “survivors” as happened at the recent “March to Impeach Cuomo and #TaxTheRich” rally in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park, it may be time for a Doug Ginsburg moment.  The rally starred Lindsey Boylan, a candidate for the primarily ceremonial and patronage rich office of President of the Borough of Manhattan.  Boylan’s campaign to date has primarily been based on being victimized by an unwanted 2018 Cuomo kiss in the Governor’s 40th floor offices at 633 Third Avenue, where HL kissed and was kissed goodbye by another governor, as both resigned.

Lindsey Boylan

Now that candidate Boylan has moved her campaign from New York Times reporter Jesse McKinley to the semifictional reporting of Ronan Farrow, it remains to be seen whether McKinley’s own campaign to oust the governor will be successful, and if it is, whether he or Farrow will get credit.

Accuser #3 Anna Ruch, whose accusation was photographically confirmed, is the survivor of a 2019 wedding kiss.  Six other accusers have come forward, for a total of eight.  That matches the eight accusations lodged against Joe Biden in Spring 2020.  We noted in HL 129 that those allegations are eerily similar to those made against Cuomo.  Both sets of  allegations also elicited very similar tepid apologies and equivocal explanations, with promises to do better.

Carl Heastie

To date Cuomo has conformed to our advice to not resign and not give in to the demand of the mob of New York Democratic electeds, but instead listen to the majority of New Yorkers and the vast majority of Democratic and self-styled “liberal” voters who do not want him to resign.  We also called for vacatur of the office to occur, if at all, through the state constitutional process of impeachment.  Since our call, the state assembly’s speaker, Carl Heastie, has initiated an investigation that may lead to a vote on impeachment.  Since HL is two for two, we now ask whether a Doug Ginsburg moment is in order.

Those of an age may recall that soon after Judge Douglas Ginsburg’s Halloween 1987 nomination to SCOTUS by President Reagan, Doug withdrew from consideration.  The nomination hastily made in the wake of the Senate’s rejection of Reagan’s first choice, Judge Robert Bork, was torpedoed by Nina Totenberg’s reports that Doug had not merely smoked his share of dope while teaching at Harvard Law School but was usually the “pharmacist” for “The Law School’s” faculty parties.  At that 1987 juncture, the vast majority of college educated Americans had smoked marijuana.  But that reality was not yet acceptable in Republican circles or by a President whose wife had widely admonished “just say NO.”

But because almost everyone had said “YES” Ginsburg’s demise created a moment where scores of electeds and many other public officials and celebrities rushed forward to declare that they too had smoked.  It became a penalty free return your overdue library books period, which went on for years.  That is until brought to an abrupt close by Bill Clinton’s hysterical, stupid and most likely false admission that he had smoked but “never inhaled.”  Given subsequent Clinton conduct, terminated short of culmination, perhaps Clinton wasn’t lying.

Leaving aside the serious allegations of sexual harassment and abuse, made against Cuomo and Biden and the importance of due process before conclusions are reached and punishment meted out, now might be a good time for the many wedding and Christmas party kissers to come forward and preemptively beg the forgiveness of survivors.