Not Really Accepting Responsibility

For John, BLUF:  The Governor is trying to bamboozle us over the Sheila Burgess affair.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Ms Sheila Burgess, our Commonwealth's Director of Highway Safety has offered her resignation, effective 31 December.  This was precipitated by revelation that she has a bad driving record, including 34 incidents in her "permanent record", including two failures to stop for a police officer.

The search for who hired her has been ongoing, with Governor Patrick going on the radio and telling us that the Administration has been having trouble finding the records.  It looked like buck passing.

President Harry Truman famously said "The buck stops here".  There was no one he could blame for bad things happening.  In yesterday's edition of The [Lowell] Sun is an article♥ that tells us our Governor, Deval Patrick, says "I'm to blame for hiring highway chief".

You know the answer to that.  The ultimate responsibility for all things that go wrong or right in the administration lies with me, and I've said before, and if you want me to say it again I will, she shouldn't have been hired for that position.

The problem is, while he can say he was to blame, with the lack of understanding what happened it seems pretty bloodless.  It actually looks like a "limited hangout".♠  The actions of the Governor in this incident meets the criteria.

I would hope that Editors and Bloggers across the Commonwealth will call the Governor out on this.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Makes one think of the Richard Nixon Modified Limited Hangout.
♥  Remember, articles in The [Lowell] Sun go away after a while, to a different place.  I will not be updating their links unless I am bedridden and have read every book in the house.