On Day of GOP House Takeover, Today Show Finds Time to Celebrate NY's Democratic First Couple
On the day the Republicans took over the House, NBC's Today show found time to send correspondent Peter Alexander out to profile New York's "First Couple" of the newly elected Governor Andrew Cuomo and his Food Network chef girlfriend Sandra Lee. While Alexander devoted most of his Wednesday report to Lee's biography, he did air political consultant Dan Gerstein observing that an unmarried First Couple in New York wasn't a big deal considering that Cuomo was following a governor "who was discredited in a prostitution scandal and another governor who admitted not just infidelity but cocaine use." Of course neither Gerstein or Alexander bothered to mention that those two respective scandalized former governors (Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson) were Democrats.
The following is Alexander's puff piece on Cuomo and Lee as it was aired on the January 5 edition of the Today show:
MEREDITH VIEIRA: Andrew Cuomo was sworn in as the governor of New York over the weekend and his girlfriend Food Network star Sandra Lee was by his side. NBC's Peter Alexander has more on the Empire State's new First Family. Peter, good morning to you.
[On screen headline: "New York's 'First Girlfriend,' From The Kitchen To The Governor's Mansion"]
PETER ALEXANDER: Meredith, good morning to you. Of course usually when a candidate is elected to higher office you know their name, but not the First Lady. Not the case in this place, it may be the other way around here in New York. Andrew Cuomo's longtime girlfriend, Sandra Lee, is herself a household name.
SANDRA LEE: That's all I'm gonna do here. Now for that great honey dip.
ALEXANDER: She's perhaps most at home in the kitchen.
LEE: Those herbs smell so good.
ALEXANDER: Sandra Lee is one of the Food Network's stars, a glamorous celebrity chef with a passion for simple solutions around the house. These days Lee has taken her homemaking skills to New York's Governor's Mansion. The state's First Girlfriend held the Bible for her newly inaugurated boyfriend Andrew Cuomo when he was sworn into office last week. While an unmarried First Couple would surely have raised eyebrows when Cuomo's father was the state's top executive, it doesn't any more, and certainly not here in New York.
DAN GERSTEIN, POLITICAL CONSULTANT & COMMENTATOR: The fact that he's following a governor who was discredited in a prostitution scandal and another governor who admitted not just infidelity but cocaine use.
ALEXANDER: Like most First Ladies Lee has already adopted a cause, helping the millions of New Yorkers fighting hunger, reflecting her own rags to riches story, as told in her memoir, Made From Scratch. Lee grew up in poverty, the daughter of an abusive drug addicted mother, even raising her four younger sisters and brothers herself.
LEE: If it wasn't for, you know, food banks and if it wasn't for food stamps and the welfare system that's how I grew up.
ALEXANDER: It's a second shot of love for them both. Cuomo, recently named one of People magazine's Sexiest Men Alive, is divorced from Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy. Lee told the New York Post, Cuomo's kids are incredibly important to her. That the three teenage girls come first, even featuring them on her cooking show. The modern family went to church together on Sunday. Still Lee admits the governor's parents first told the girls about their dad's love affair. They are, by all accounts, one happy family, complete with a new pet. A baby cockatoo - Lee's Christmas gift from the governor. The only thing missing? A wedding band. And because Sandra Lee and Andrew Cuomo are not married, Lee says she will have no staff, no security detail. But having authored 23 cook books you don't have to worry, she's doing just fine. She says she will use a private security company if it's ever needed. Matt, Meredith?
VIEIRA: Alright Peter Alexander, thank you very much.
—Geoffrey Dickens is the Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here
- Geoffrey Dickens's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
I dated Sandra Lee's sister Sarah for a while . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Wed, 01/05/2011 - 5:58pm.
. . . she had plenty of dough and I found her to be rather sweet, but she called me 'crumby.' Then I discovered that she already had a kid named Little Debbie -- that was the icing on the cake for me. We broke up.
Ta Daaa
Submitted by jdlybrand on Wed, 01/05/2011 - 6:04pm.
Rim shot!
"What a revoltin' development this is!"
Chester Riley
Well.. here's what I think of Andrew Cuomo
Submitted by Gary Hall on Wed, 01/05/2011 - 8:25pm.
Let's let the New York rag tag leftie "Village Voice" do the talking:
Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie - How the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history gave birth to the mortgage crisis Aug 5 2008
Or the liberal Center for Public Integrty:
ACCOUNTABILITY: Why is Andrew Cuomo Shielding Fannie and Freddie? Center for Public Integrity, April, 2009
Andrew Cuomo was as responsible as anyone out there in bringing the world's economy to it's knees, and, in causing untold pain and suffering for it's citizens.
(;~/ gary
Vapid Flaccid Ignorant Liberalism
Submitted by stratman on Wed, 01/05/2011 - 10:31pm.
My knowledge of Sandra Lee is from YouTube videos, not from watching her cable TV show, so it is cherrypicked to be sure. That said, the women seems perfunctory and potted. She makes the most mediocre food, some of it horrendous, and she focuses on alcohol more than the Galloping Gourmet.
The Left love the lowest common denominator.
He's Dating Sandra Lee?!?!
Submitted by EllisWyatt on Thu, 01/06/2011 - 10:28am.
This is too funny. The Gov. of New York dating the train wreck of the Food Network. The only reason I occasionally watch her show is to see her face light up when it's cocktail time.
"Elections have consequences" ... unless the Republicans win
"Dissent is Patriotic" ... when it's against conservative policies.