Is This A Healthy Father-Son Relationship?

Phil Reisman at LoHud:

At the funeral Mass, Cuomo talked revealingly about how his father's competitive nature was unleashed during intense, one-on-one games of basketball at the State Police gym in Albany. "We had epic battles, he and I. He hated few things as much as a timid opponent on the basketball court because you cheated him of a real contest."

The son said he wasn't intimidated because, as he noted rather pointedly, he was bigger than his father.

Nevertheless, Mario would taunt, make faces and engage in a constant banter "designed to unnerve you."

"He would hit you in places the human body did not have anatomical defenses," Cuomo said. "The issue of calling fouls plagued us."

And the grudge match between Mario and Andrew wasn't just on the basketball court:

Bill O'Shaughnessy, who was Mario Cuomo's friend and confidante, tells a story that illustrates the delicate nature of the Cuomo father-son relationship.

The backdrop to the story is the SAFE Act, the gun-control proposal that the governor eventually succeeded in pushing through the state Legislature to become law, but not without first absorbing a great deal of criticism from Second Amendment advocates.

During the hottest moments of the public debate, Mario told O'Shaughnessy that he wished his son would defend the gun bill by saying, "I would give up 30 points of my personal popularity if it saves the life of one child."

O'Shaughnessy thought that was a great line, and urged Mario to call his son and suggest he use it. He recalled Mario saying, "The most efficient way to ensure that he won't use it is for me to tell him."

Mario sometimes communicated with Andrew through surrogates. Taking the cue, O'Shaughnessy dutifully called the governor and offered the sound bite, as if he had come up with it himself. He was met with silence on the other end of the line.

Finally Andrew spoke: "Have you been talking to my father?"
 
Then he hung up.

If it wasn't obvious before this, it should be obvious now as more and more stories about the Mario and Andrew relationship surface.

Andrew is working his daddy issues out on the people of the State of New York.

And he's got a lot of issues.