A better take would have been to see the theater of Cuomo for what it was… theater. “Cuomo, who’s spent many years selling himself as the Man of Action, is earning all sorts of wild praise now for his briefings, despite or almost because of the virus’ wild success here.” New York City was the center of the storm, not only in the country but in the world. While things have improved since then, New York state has lost 47,247 people to the virus so far, second only to California, a state with twice the population.

And a better take would have been to see the ways, more obvious in hindsight but not hidden then, that Cuomo mismanaged the crisis here, by delaying an urgently shutdown because his rival Mayor Bill de Blasio had called for one and, most damning, by forcing nursing homes to accept COVID patients from hospitals and then fighting for nearly a year to cover up the death count tied to that decision.

And while it really did seem comforting to see Cuomo bring his 22-year-old daughter Michaela to one of his briefings and to hear him talk about his family sheltering in place together, all that is tainted now by the accounts of him pursuing women his daughters’ age and on his payroll.