Radio Free Montone: Man Up Mayor, Governor
By John Montone, 1010 WINS
When the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion went horribly wrong, President Kennedy took full responsibility for the failure. "There's an old saying," said the young President to the American people, "victory has one hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan." Are you listening Mayor de Blasio? Are you, Governor Cuomo?
Yes, meteorologists muffed it. The massive storm that was supposed to cripple New York City with two feet of snow...maybe three feet said the Mayor, in his best, WE ARE DOOMED, tone…veered sharply to the east, "Like Odell Beckham Jr. running a down and out," I cleverly reported on 1010 WINS. Come on, give me props for the metaphor. So, yes, the modern weather guys and gals with their satellite images and data from balloons that report back from high up in the atmosphere still couldn't pinpoint just where the blizzard would strike. Except that they pretended they knew. They spoke with great certainty. And yes, I bought into the hysteria. I called the approaching storm, "That monster from the mid-west." Good alliteration, bad call.
So on Tuesday morning as I slogged through the slush with New Yorkers ripping the Mayor for his hype and the Governor for shutting down the transit system, I issued a mea culpa on the air. I actually said, "Mea culpa."
But the Mayor?
He exhibited oratorical ho-hum explaining, "It was better to be safe than sorry."
And the gov?
He blamed the weather guys. He called it, "a big forecast miss," which is more or less what he said when Buffalo got buried by the lake effect storm in November. Cuomo also repeated his plan to have New York state develop the biggest, bestest, hi-techiest, "Weather Detection System," in the galaxy. Maybe he hoped we would forget that with about an inch of snow on the streets of the city he banned all vehicles and shut down the entire transit system.
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"Don't blame me, don't blame me, blame the weather man on TV," the Governor might as well have said.
So who out there was the most Jack Kennedyesque in accepting responsibility for the blown call? I nominate Gary Szatkowski, the chief forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Mt. Holly, who as blizzard turned to bust, tweeted, "My deepest apologies to many key decision makers and so many members of the general public."
Mayor. Governor. Now that's leadership. Szatkowski, thanks for manning up.
But next time, get it right.
