As soon as the Virginia highway shutdown became news, the left were out blaming Glenn Youngkin, who won the election last November.
These are some smart folks! pic.twitter.com/MoS6xqsFjt
— Chris Krok (@chriskrokshow) January 5, 2022
But, oops! Mr Youngkin won’t take office until January 15th. That’s amusing enough in itself, but now Governor Northam is upset that people are criticizing him!
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam says he’s ‘sick and tired’ of his government being criticized for the I-95 traffic pileup that left hundreds stranded for hours
by John L Dorman | Saturday, January 8, 2022
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said Wednesday he was “sick and tired” of hearing criticism of “what went wrong” during the recent snowstorm that left hundreds of people stranded for hours on Interstate 95, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
During an interview on WRVA, a Richmond-area radio station, reporter Matt Demlein asked Northam about any updates in assessing how the huge transportation backlog transpired, especially as many were stuck in their vehicles with limited heat, minimal food options, and frigid outdoor temperatures.
The Democratic governor — who is term-limited and will leave office on January 15 — forcefully rejected the line of questioning about the incident, which made nationwide headlines.
“I don’t know why you’re sitting there saying, ‘what went wrong?'” Northam said. “This was a storm that we haven’t seen for a long time. It started with rain, and then turned into a slushy snow of eight to ten inches … more than what was predicted. And then after midnight, turned into essentially an ice rink.” . . . .
“We knew that the storm was coming. We put warnings out. Why don’t you start asking some of these individuals that were out on the highway for hours, one, did you know about the storm? Two, why did you feel it was so important to drive through such a snowstorm?” Northam said. “And three, in hindsight, do you think maybe you should have stayed home or wherever you were, rather than getting out on Interstate 95?
All of those tractor-trailers? They didn’t have a choice: it’s their job to deliver their loads, on time. The other people? Some of them doubtlessly had little choice. But Mr Northam is going to blame them.
You know, in some ways, he’s right: the Commonwealth was not prepared for the type of storm which hits the Old Dominion once in a blue moon, and it’s not really reasonable for the state to spend the money to prepare for something that rare.
But the reality is that he’s Governor of Virginia now because he asked for the job, told people he could do the job, and said that he was the man they should make responsible for running the Commonwealth. Someone who once held higher office once said, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” The chief executives love to take credit for things when they go right, even if they weren’t actually the ones making things go right. They also get the blame when things go wrong, and things have gone wrong enough in Virginia that not only did Mr Youngkin defeat Democrat Terry McAuliffe, but Virginia voters flipped the state House of Delegates from Democrat to Republican control.
Time for him to get out of the kitchen.