This week’s hubbub over the hair-trigger temper of CNN’s Chris Cuomo brings much to the fore. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s younger (some would say less bright) brother enacted an expletive- and threat-laden tirade, captured on cell phone, now an internet sensation, when a passerby called him “Fredo” and asked to take a photo with him.
How it calls to mind the twin film masterpieces, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, in which the character Fredo is the middle brother, weaker and less bright than those around him in the Corleone crime family’s ruthless orbit; and who, in the second of the two films, vehemently pronounces how smart he is and demands the respect he has always been denied. It parallels ‘Fredo’ Cuomo confronting his own tormentor, vehemently demanding respect from the man and threatening to throw the man down a flight of stairs, among other things, if he doesn’t get it. Another character within the Corleones’ ruthless orbit comes to mind, the equally ruthless, Hollywood film magnate, Jack Woltz; and yes, there is a connection.
Woltz is best remembered as the antagonist who, after refusing a favor to Don Vito Corleone, awakens one morning to find a severed horse head buried in his bedsheets, pretty harrowing stuff. There is another moment, however, that defines Woltz; when he stands indignantly, even threateningly, over the Corleone family lawyer, Tom Hagen, proclaiming vehemently that an actor named Johnny Fontane, who is a close friend of the Corleone’s, has made Mr. Woltz look ridiculous among his peers, stating that he intends to run Fontane out the film business entirely. Woltz then barks a crucial line … “A man in my position can’t afford to be made to look ridiculous!”
Doesn’t that pretty well sum up the reaction of the establishment Left, the younger Cuomo among them, ever since private citizen Donald Trump uncannily morphed into President Trump? Establishment gurus assured us, after all, the vulgarian Trump had no chance of winning the presidency, and after he did win, that he had no chance of surviving his first term in office. So much for the so-called experts. They’ve been made to look, well, ridiculous.
Refusing all favors to President Trump, and any ally in his orbit, they are vehement, ruthless, unrelentingly antagonistic toward the man they’ve made dubious reputations underestimating, still hoping to run him out of politics entirely. Who knows, maybe they’ll wake up one day to find something unexpected, such as a Russiagate narrative turned against them, buried in their own bedsheets. Time will tell.
PolitiQuick 