New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is satisfied with Ken Langone's Hitler apology.
Billionaire Home Depot co-founder and Hitler analogizer Ken Langone offers a master class in how to get headlines saying you've apologized without actually apologizing. After he was quoted saying of a renewed progressive focus on economic inequality that "if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany," Langone
had this to say:
"My remarks were intended to discourage pitting one group against another group in a society. If my choice of words was inappropriate—and they well may have been that—I extend my profound apologies to anyone and everyone who I may have offended," Langone said in the statement.
Ah, the good old "if" my comparison of people who want to tax me a little more to Hitler was inappropriate, combined with the classic "I apologize to anyone I may have offended." To be fair, he adds that little extra touch of acknowledging that his Hitler comparison "may well have been" inappropriate. Oh, well, you don't get more definitive than that, right?
Actually, no. Nowhere here does Langone actually say he's sorry for having said something terribly, historically wrong that both cheapens the magnitude of the Holocaust and demonizes his political opponents over a routine, if significant, policy disagreement. He's just sorry if anyone got their fee-fees hurt over his possibly inappropriate choice of words. And someone actively pushing for our government to be run more and more for the benefit of the super-super-rich is getting self-righteous about pitting one group against another? As if starving services for everyone else by demanding lower taxes for yourself ranks nowhere on the pitting one group against another ladder.
Langone's "apology" gave New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for whom he is a major fundraiser, just enough room to send his spokesman out to say that Langone "apologized for using inappropriate words." So, yay, Cuomo gets to keep benefiting from Langone's "Republicans for Cuomo" largesse, meaning he doesn't have to give up his prize for running New York as much as possible to the benefit of billionaires. If Cuomo has the presidential ambitions he's generally believed to have, this shows a political calculation so stupid it should immediately disqualify him from the presidency. Because Republican billionaires might be happy to raise money for a conservative Democratic governor in a deep blue state like New York, but they're not likely to support him in a presidential race against an actual, viable Republican candidate and taking their money and doing their bidding will only alienate Democratic primary voters. Which is all to the good. So go right ahead, governor. Link yourself to the "liberals are like Hitler" guy.