Marvel at his achievement: Day by day he created a fictional universe, believed by millions of people, that he was a coolheaded visionary hero of crisis management instead of a serially blundering imbecile. He racked up a body count in New York not even approached by other U.S. states, including ones like California with populations much bigger than his. And dopey liberals are handing him awards for it.

Let’s see George Lucas or Steven Spielberg pull that off.

Since I wrote that in November, New York has been overtaken by two larger states, California and Texas, in deaths. But Cuomo’s state still ranks second in deaths per capita nearly 18 months removed from NYC’s ferocious outbreak last spring. And New York has seen 12,000 more deaths than Florida, which has a bigger population and has been mired in a disastrous wave of its own lately.

The character of Andrew Cuomo, steady yet sympathetic leader, as played by Andrew Cuomo, gormless handsy boor, was one of the most compelling television characters of our time.

Alas:

NEW: Andrew Cuomo has been stripped of his International Emmy. pic.twitter.com/gJHNY26hZ8

— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellGAN) August 24, 2021

Here’s what the academy said last year when it awarded him the Emmy:

Quote from International academy President Bruce Paisner: pic.twitter.com/63wobi4reO

— Alex Weprin (@alexweprin) November 20, 2020

Cuomo isn’t a figure anyone would associate with “our common humanity” but he did effectively portray one for a few months in 2020 at his press conferences. So why revoke the award?

“It’s because his press conferences were based on a lie!” you say. “He presented himself as competent and compassionate while he was racking up a gigantic death toll due to his idiotic nursing-home policies.” True enough. Back in February, New York City Councilman Robert Holden — a Democrat — sent a letter to the Emmys petitioning them to withdraw Cuomo’s honor. Quote:

“The Academy awarded Governor Cuomo ‘in recognition of his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic & his masterful use of TV to inform and calm people around the world,’” Holden wrote.

“We now know that his TV appearances and clout were used to mislead the public regarding how their loved ones died.”

Holden added: “Please rescind the Governor’s award immediately, as his actions have been an insult to every New Yorker who lost a loved one during this terrible pandemic.”

Imagine how obnoxious a politician needs to be to have members of his own party lobbying to have awards taken away from him.

The wrinkle with rescinding Cuomo’s Emmy over the nursing-home scandal, though, is that the the Attorney General’s report that eventually convinced him to resign didn’t touch on that. It focused on his sexual harassment. The nursing-home issue is still being investigated by the state assembly.

If we’re going to start stripping entertainment-industry awards from lecherous men, the Oscars and Emmys will have to start over.

Which is not to say those men wouldn’t deserve it.

The actual reason they took away Cuomo’s award, I think, was that he longer served the purpose for which they gave it to him in the first place. Cuomo was honored because of the contrast in tone with Trump that he struck during the pandemic’s early days. Trump was all about getting back to normal and reopening, Cuomo was about caution and concern. He got the Emmy as a rebuke to a president whom liberals despised and whose approach to the pandemic they found irresponsible. And now, as one shoe after another has dropped about Cuomo’s sleaziness and incompetence, he’s outlived his political usefulness to them. So the academy’s taking back its de facto endorsement and throwing him under the bus.

By the way, care to guess where the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is headquartered? Right: New York, New York. They waited until the very day that Cuomo was no longer in a position to retaliate against them politically to make their big announcement casting him aside. Real profiles in courage, they are.

I’ll leave you with this, a response to stories yesterday that he had abandoned his dog at the executive mansion rather than bring him to his new home. That’s not true, or so Cuomo claims. You trust him to tell the truth, no?

Some people just can't get the facts straight. Yes, I was downstate monitoring storm response for a few days, but Captain and I are a man and his dog. He is part of our family and that’s the way it will always be. pic.twitter.com/x2KMpBLKwL

— Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 24, 2021