Mario

My father was never a fan of Mario Cuomo. He had his reasons, many of them good-- manufacturing in Central New York dried up and blew away during Cuomo's tenure as governor, taxes skyrocketed, while the budget increasingly was spent tending The City and ignoring everything north of Rockland County.

Still, my father always admired the man's social policies. Cuomo vetoed the death penalty every year he was in office (a stand which may have cost him his job). He had a unquenchable desire for social justice and a clear idea of the government's role in achieving it. Mario Cuomo, my father would say in any conversation about him, should be a Supreme Court Justice. That would be the part he was born to play.

I would ask why, and he always finished his argument with the same phrase.

No-knock.

Mario Cuomo would protect people from bullying police tactics like no-knock searches. This was a conservative pet project that would represent the ultimate in unconstitutional intrusion into our private lives. We needed justices like Cuomo to protect us from no-knock.

Imagine my disappointment in reading this headline today.

It's here, guys. No-knock is here and it's here to stay.

I'm moving to Canada. Who's with me?