The Cuomo Affair: Missing the point.

 

UPDATE: CNN Terminated Cuomo's contract and his employment on Saturday, November 3, 2021.

As Cookie continues to mourn the collapse of American society and education, there is a growing roar that is proving to men that we are no longer a nation of the Free, but a Confederacy of Dunces. 

The latest kerfuffle is the shockingly high number of social media who feel that Chris Cuomo should be reinstated at CNN.  CNN put Cuomo into a permanent suspension mode after it came out last week that Cuomo used his position at CNN to do background workups on the accusers of his brother, former Governor Mario Cuomo Jr. who is facing legal action for his sexual harassing of women, including those on the governor's payroll.

Cookie is a former journalism student, and Cookie is a former HR professional.  My view is that Cuomo should be told to pick up the contents of his office and the contract canceled.  Why?   Because he more than likely breached his contract with CNN.  

Normally employment contracts between BIG name talent and their employees (in this case, on-air talent) who have signed employment contracts have two clauses that are pretty constant.  Under the breech section, contract employees can be dismissed for a variety of reasons, but of those varieties of reasons, two are pretty standard: misuse of company resources for personal enrichment, behavior, or acts that cast the employer in a negative light.   In Cuomo's case, he did both, according to reports.  And if he did those things, there is a very real possibility that he could be charged with gaining information for illegal purposes, and/or witness intimidation. 

NORMALLY, in these forums, you find members of the political extreme railing against the other side's media outlets, real or imagined.  However, on this matter, I am seeing a lot of accounts (or sockpuppets) on the left (or pretending to be) railing against CNN for suspending Cuomo.  

Well, of course, there are those who love Cuomo.  And there are the people who hate him.  But Cookie is finding the flimsiest of arguments emerging: He was defending his brother so he should be allowed on the air. 

Now the Constitution does make a provision for the spouse of an accused cannot be made to testify against a legal spouse.  A wife cannot be compelled to testify agist her wife, or her husband, and the same for a man testifying against his husband or wife.  But the legal doctrine of this nation provides no shield for siblings of the accused.  Never has, never will. 

Yet these idiots find what he did (breach of contract, and any misdemeanors or felonies) acceptable and excusable because he was helping his big brother.

Never mind that aiding and abetting, or the perception thereof, tarnishes his reputation, they find what he did acceptable.  And Cookie is very afraid of that concept. The law makes no provisions that allow a shield of protection to those who willingly or unwittingly do stupid things that infringe on the rights of others, period. 

But Cookie also suspects that there are a good number of very twisted ideologues who are championing his reinstatement because then they get a chance to undermine CNN by employing the type of people like Cuomo who have no ethics.  

NOW, the other end of this is that because Donald Trump has made such behavior acceptable by building an entire administration around this concept of "the ends justify the means" doesn't we that it OK for anti-Trump people to stoop to that level.  And yet that is another argument why Cuomo should be reinstated. "But what about Fox News? They do things like this all the time!" they complain. The problem with that is it's a false equivalency.  

(And Cookie should put the cards on the table about FOXNews - its dishonest propaganda, and it presents a very real threat to any democracy, conservative, moderate or liberal.)

If we do not fight for what is righteous, if we abandon our principles, then we have nothing left to fight for. 

So Cookie thinks and knows that CNN has to off-load Cuomo.  Once legal reviews this, he needs to go. 

As a warning to others, as a punishment to him.  

It has to happen.  And since I wrote this originally, they have terminated his employment.