Stop the presses! All those stories you have read about hypocritical Democratic mayors and governors ordering their constituents to shelter in place during the COVID pandemic while they themselves went on with their daily lives are wrong. It turns out it was not hypocrisy that led Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to get a haircut in defiance of her own social distancing order or California Gov. Gavin Newsom to dine with 12 friends at an exclusive restaurant. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) set the record straight during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” where she explained to host Jake Tapper that these seeming derelictions were all honest “mistakes.”
What’s more, according to Bass, is that each of the high-profile Democrats involved “held themselves accountable and apologized.” (OK, Lightfoot never apologized, instead justifying her actions by claiming she is “the public face of this city.” And Nancy Pelosi responded to the bombshell report that she had visited a San Francisco salon during a citywide ban by insisting huffily that he had been “set up.”) And even though Newsom did issue a mea culpa, as did Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who phoned in a stay-at-home reminder to his constituents from a Mexican resort, what of it? The damage or potential for it is already done. (RELATED: L.A. mayor slammed for halting COVID testing for movie production)
Here is a video of Bass’s comments in which she concludes “that we have to be much stronger in California and the rest of the country in really putting out accurate public health information.” I would submit that the accurate info is already out there and that what Democrats need to do is stop making excuses for each other and instead practice what they preach.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Well, I certainly think those were unfortunate mistakes, and each of those elected officials have held themselves accountable and apologized. But I don’t think that is sufficient in terms of a mixed message. I think that we have to be much stronger in California and the rest of the country in really putting out accurate public health information. You know, if this had been done in the first place, I don’t believe that we would be approaching a holiday season with over 270,000 lives that have been lost. And my heart goes out to all of those families that have to go through the holidays with empty chairs.
