“Lis Smith is not your grandfather’s political consultant,” smirked The New York Times in a piece headlined “Confessions of a Political Swashbuckler.” Politico somehow managed to conduct an entirely straight-faced, 90-minute interview, repeatedly describing the book as “honest,” without once asking about or speaking to the women who’ve been on the receiving end of Smith’s “talents. “There’s nobody more fun to get spun by than Lis Smith,” blared New York magazine. With the exceptions of Sarah Jones and Erik Wemple, who wrote withering columns about the media and political economies that make Smith’s absurd about-face possible, she’s been treated to mostly fawning profiles. Drawing on decades of on-the-ground reporting and interviews. That’s on him, she concludes, not the responsibility of an amoral operative who is neither naive nor stupid, and who stuck with the Prince of Darkness for six months straight through endless revelations. How America's 20-year investment in Afghanistan culminated in Taliban victory. But Cuomo couldn’t be saved, despite her best efforts. I couldn’t live with myself if I let anyone I knew well go through it alone,” she writes. According to her, though, she was practically on a humanitarian mission: “It’s impossible to describe the isolation and hopelessness that consume you when you’re in the eye of a PR shit storm. A PR sharpshooter, Smith’s job was to take out Cuomo’s enemies, in this case a cascade of former and current government employees who’d been propositioned, forcibly touched, and sexually harassed by their boss. Smith is all over text messages and e-mails, gleefully taking credit for putting her spin in MSNBC anchor Katy Tur’s mouth telling off Matt Flegenheimer from The New York Times and bending the ears of media bigwigs like Bill Maher, George Stephanopoulos, and Chuck Todd. What exactly did she do for Cuomo? You don’t have to put money in her pocket to find out just read Attorney General Letitia James’s 168-page report verifying Cuomo’s misconduct and his team’s efforts to smear the women who spoke out about his abuse. Smith is out promoting her new book, Any Given Tuesday, a dishy tell-all about her life as a political consultant to the likes of Pete Buttigieg, Bill de Blasio, and, yes, the former governor of New York.

The Festering by Guy N. Smith