I did Andrew Cuomo an injustice earlier today by accepting as true an allegation that the New York attorney-general was alluding to Barack Obama when he used the phrase "shuck and jive" as representative of what you can't do in the intimate campaigns of New Hampshire and Iowa. After realizing my mistake, I spoke with Cuomo on the phone and we agreed that the phrase was unfortunate, more than unfortunate. But, in the absence of very clear evidence, why did I so easily accept that he was applying it to Obama when he was not? That's my sloppiness, and worse than sloppiness.
What's more I took the occasion to slam political families as though they did nothing but try to transfer votes from one generation to the next. This was unfair to the Cuomos. First to Mario, who was a magnificent governor and would have made a magnificent Supreme Court justice. Second to Andrew, who was an excellent HUD secretary and is now using his authority as attorney general to unearth and undo what the malefactors of insurance and banking wealth did to the credit system in America.
Sorry, Andrew.
And sorry, readers.