Hypocrisy can be embarrassing — and also politically disabling.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler got a dose of that nasty medicine this week, when Tony Plohetski — a reporter for KVUE-TV and the Austin American-Statesman — revealed that the mayor was in Cabo San Lucas when he took to Facebook in early November to send a stay-at-home message to his constituents.
That would be a contender for the Gavin Newsom Leadership Award, if such a prize existed. Newsom, the governor of California, demonstrated his tin ear by dining indoors at one of the country’s fanciest restaurants at the same time he was telling his constituents to avoid such gatherings.
Big public mistakes of the “do what I say, not what I do” variety are always embarrassing. It’s worse when mayors, governors and other big shots are using their bully pulpits to get people to suspend their lives and their livelihoods to try to subdue a spreading pandemic.
Source: Analysis: Leading by (bad) example / The Texas Tribune