California Governor Gavin Newsom is a notorious COVID scold, berating the citizens of his state for not being sufficiently self-sacrificing. His Department of Health notoriously put out a bulletin that directed restaurant diners to wear face masks between bites. So it is no surprise that California politics are being roiled by the revelation, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, that Newsom and his wife attended a dinner for 12, from multiple households, in violation of the state’s COVID rules, at one of the ritziest restaurants in the world. It is noteworthy that this article comes from the Associated Press, usually a reliable liberal news source:
For months, Gov. Gavin Newsom has pleaded with Californians to resist the temptation to socialize with friends and relatives outside their household. Turns out, he’s the one who couldn’t resist.
Newsom acknowledged Friday he attended a birthday party with a dozen friends on Nov. 6 at the posh French Laundry restaurant in wine country north of San Francisco.
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According to the Chronicle, representatives for Kinney and Newsom declined to specify how many households the diners represented, but did not dispute that it was more than three.Newsom’s spokesman, Nathan Click, did not answer questions from the Associated Press about whether Newsom was tested for the coronavirus after attending or if he wore a mask when he wasn’t eating or drinking, as he’s urged Californians to do.
Politically, it doesn’t help that the dinner was at the French Laundry:
The three-star Michelin restaurant has maintained its $350 per person tasting menu, served in an outdoor dining room during the pandemic. It also added a number of other options, including a $450 per person menu for parties of up to 12 people, that can be served indoors or outside, and another for $850.
Newsom’s hypocrisy is typical of the pervasive attitude among America’s alleged elites that rules are for the little people. The other way of looking at it, of course, is that if those who promulgate rules don’t follow them, it is evidence that the rules were stupid in the first place.
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