The mythology of Andrew Cuomo always struck me as disproportionate with reality. Maybe that’s because I never covered New York politics up close. But in that world, among beat reporters and operatives and legislators and media consiglieres, he was weirdly venerated: He was a brass-balled Italian alpha from another time, swatting away Democratic primary challengers, doling out favors, installing loyalists on committees and boards, cajoling the press with a mix of threats and his odd brand of charm, and emasculating New York Mayor Bill de Blasio whenever he felt like it, just for kicks.

Above all else, Cuomo was seen as a master of the inside game, muscling big legislation and working New York’s political levers like the Wizard of Oz. And as I wrote that very sentence, I hopped over to Wikipedia to see if I had stumbled upon a Cuomo metaphor that might work for this column. Et voila! “Toto pulls back a curtain, exposing the ‘Wizard’ as a con man operating machinery.”