The Orlando Sentinel has thoughts about Gov. Ron "One Glove" DeSantis' record on COVID-19:
Florida’s summer of suffering was also a summer of silence for Ron DeSantis.
The governor had nearly nothing to say about his state’s lengthy run as No. 1 in the nation in COVID cases, No. 1 in hospitalizations and No. 1 in deaths.
Instead, the governor held almost daily news conferences intended to burnish his presidential bona fides among the MAGA crowd, and boost his presidential ambitions.
Through it all, the governor pointedly ignored the elephant in the room: That Florida — his state, his responsibility — was the epicenter for a deadly new COVID outbreak caused by the delta variant.
With numbers finally falling, DeSantis now has the gall, the nerve, to take a victory lap.
“Florida Reaches Lowest Case Rate in the Nation,” trumpeted the headline of a Wednesday news release, which went on to say, “As a result of Governor Ron DeSantis’ leadership and our data-driven approach free of mandates, the State of Florida has one of the lowest COVID-19 daily average case rates in the last 7 days per 100,000 residents in the United States.”
Florida led the nation in case rates for much of the summer, and our governor was silent. Well, not totally silent. He did rail against mask and vaccine mandates, measures intended to prevent people from falling ill.
Now, a governor whose sole contribution to fighting the outbreak was to expand antibody treatments for people after they got infected is taking full credit for the decline in cases.
As others have already noted, it’s like a firefighter tossing a bucket of water on a house that’s already been burned to the ground and then declaring victory.
What a fraud. What a phony.
There's more editorial, but we'll stop with that bottom line.
DeSantis also counts as a fraud and a phony because of his cynical touting of election fraud conspiracies and initial refusal to acknowledge Joe Biden's victory.
He's a fraud and a phony when it comes to pushing laws to forbid Florida cities from being sanctuary cities (there are none in Florida); for championing the "critical race theory" racist dog whistle (CRT is not taught in Florida K-!2, nor is it taught in any other state); and for dubious legislation that sought to take on social media platforms for de-platforming the Malignant Loser.
He's a fraud and a phony whose main focus is to get oxygen from Fox "News" coverage in order to mount a re-election campaign in 2022 and then a presidential campaign in 2024 (the Malignant Loser might have something to say about that). He's pure charlatan -- and, did we mention, a fraud and a phony? The perfect Republican!
(Photos: DeSantis practicing Republican-style public hygiene during pandemic)
