by Kerry Dougherty
Sitting down?
Here’s the attaboy to Gov. Ralph Northam that I meant to write for Thursday, until anarchy broke out in the U.S. Capitol.
Ever since they began in March, some of us have come to dread Northam’s COVID press conferences. The governor’s tone drips with condescension, he seems to blame people for getting sick and many of his emergency orders have been larded with restrictions that aren’t remotely grounded in science, but seem instead designed only to punish Virginians and make life miserable. No sitting on the beach comes to mind.
So, naturally, I turned on his Wednesday presser with trepidation, wondering what fresh hell awaited us. After all, Virginia’s infection rates are up sharply and even though we have thousands of empty hospital beds, no hospitals in the commonwealth are reporting a shortage of PPE and ICUs still have plenty of capacity, we seemed ripe for some kind of ugly California-style measures.
The urge to do something even if they know it won’t work, seems to be strong in most governors.
I was stunned and pleasantly surprised that this once the governor didn’t follow the lead of idiots like Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo. Neither did Northam berate Virginians who are doing their best to stay healthy during a pandemic.
Instead, he spread hope. Continue reading →