Meanwhile the new scandals of Gotham City are once more making many people in the rest of the country feel superior to a place that they don’t seem ever able to accept as superior, even though in so many cultural ways it is bound to be simply by means of its position and wealth. It’s what Sen. Ted Cruz articulated during his presidential campaign when he spoke in a derogative manner about “New York values.”

This is the kind of prejudice often used to validate the moral superiority (and political convictions) of the hinterlands while being at the same time shamelessly hypocritical. Just think Alabama and Judge Roy Moore.

However, if there is one immediately redeeming feature of this saga it is that the sins of New York are being so unblinkingly exposed by the journalists of New York—particularly at The New Yorker and The New York Times.