ICYMI: Who, me? Missouri Gov. Mike Parson passes the buck again as COVID-19 cases surge

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“When the state needed a leader, what it got was Mike Parson.”

Yesterday, the Kansas City Star Editorial Board called out GOP Gov. Mike Parson for announcing he would not take responsibility for the increase of COVID-19 cases in Missouri.
The Ed Board said: “Missouri Gov. Mike Parson says any random person walking the hallways of the Capitol — the guy who empties his trash, maybe, or the woman who sells him a coffee — is as responsible as he is for the surge in COVID-19 cases that has followed his decision to lift all coronavirus restrictions after June 15.”
But as much as Parson tries to shirk his responsibility – the buck stops with him. 
It was Parson who issued one of the latest, most lenient stay at home orders in the country, refused to lead by example and follow CDC recommendations to wear a mask, and reopened the state as COVID-19 cases were surging. And it was also Parson who spread the widely debunked lie that COVID-19 was the flu.
Parson has placed partisanship above public health at every turn. He doesn’t belong in the governor’s chair. And it’s clear Missourians know it – Parson was ranked 48th out of 50 and 49th out of 50 governors for his handling of the pandemic.
Read more about Parson’s feckless leadership below:
Kansas City Star Editorial: Who, me? Missouri Gov. Mike Parson passes the buck again as COVID-19 cases surge
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson says any random person walking the hallways of the Capitol — the guy who empties his trash, maybe, or the woman who sells him a coffee — is as responsible as he is for the surge in COVID-19 cases that has followed his decision to lift all coronavirus restrictions after June 15. Missouri has had 1,954 confirmed cases and 81 deaths since then.
“I don’t know that any one person’s responsible for that no more than anyone else standing out here in this hallway,” Parson said at a news conference on Tuesday.
No one else in that or any other hallway is responsible for his decisions, his policies, his actions and his failure to act. But anyone else standing out there in that hallway might have eclipsed his weak, late and often bristling, who-me performance during this pandemic. When the state needed a leader, what it got was Mike Parson.
More than once, he told Missourians that he personally would not even wear a mask, as if this simple and highly effective precaution were somehow emasculating.
Over to you, Missouri, he said, again and again stressing that it was up to each individual to do as he saw fit. Personal responsibility was the key. For other people, that is.
Because now, when asked if he takes any personal responsibility for the results of lifting the state’s social distancing recommendation, he can’t believe anyone would ask him that, and turns the question on the reporter: Does she take responsibility for it?
[…]
Doesn’t know, didn’t watch, never heard of it, not me. Never me.