Leave it to a busted politician to come up with the most lame excuse we’ve heard yet for failing to follow one of his own COVID mandates.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was photographed smiling mask-less along with Magic Johnson at Sunday’s NFC Championship Game at SoFi Stadium. That’s in defiance of his city’s own mask mandate, which requires masks to be worn at significant-sized events whether they’re inside or outside. With 80,000 people in attendance, we reckon that counts as “significant.”
His excuse? Hold your breath. Pulling an excuse from the old Bill Clinton playbook, Garcetti said in effect he “didn’t inhale” — and thus there was no chance of him passing along the virus.
“When people ask for a photograph, I hold my breath,” Garcetti told reporters at a news conference, adding “There is a zero percent chance of infection from that.”
Really? Got CDC proof on that one, Mr. Mayor?
As always, Garcetti had plenty of company in this most recent episode of the long-running series, “Hypocrisy Of the Rich and Famous.” San Francisco Mayor London Breed (who, for a change, wasn’t dancing mask-less in a crowded nightclub) and Gov. Gavin Newsom were also photographed without their masks, beaming proudly in Johnson’s still-magic presence.
So now here comes the Super Bowl. We’re wondering where the oddsmakers are coming down on this over-under — combined points scored by the two teams (current line 48.5), or total number of masks seen in the crowd on television?
We’re taking the points. Because, seriously — at this point, who in the world is going to bother to wear a mask at a sporting event when the same leaders who keep telling us it’s necessary refuse to do it themselves?
(Newsom, for the record, said he took the mask off just to pose for a photo and was holding it in his left hand the entire time. Subsequent photos that showed him without a mask in his left hand, much less on his face, didn’t exactly back his story.)
All in all, it was just another lopsided game of elitism, comfort and arrogance, and we don’t mean on the playing field.
Don’t these people ever learn?
It’s one thing to be caught in the French Laundry unknowingly. It’s something else to stand there and openly take photos knowing each of you are breaking your own mandates.
One could argue that the stadium in Los Angeles is not so much a dome as it is an open-air stadium with a roof over the top of it, but it is still considered indoors by the state.
But we’re not here to simply call out the elites. There was barely anybody in the stadium with a mask on, which makes us wonder — why even have the mandate if you’re not going to enforce it?
Remember, the Super Bowl will be played at the same stadium Feb. 13. The state’s mask mandate will still be in effect and, according to our governor, we’re still in a “state of emergency” because of the latest COVID-19 wave.
Of course, there’s waaaaaayyy too much money involved with a Super Bowl to turn it down or move it elsewhere. Firing health care workers and state employees for not wearing masks or being unvaccinated is perfectly OK, of course; but flying in 80,000 people from all over the country to congregate shoulder-to-shoulder for nearly four hours in the same place at the same time? Woo hoo! Party time, and pass the margaritas!
And that’s just the game. The Super Bowl is always preceded by an entire week of out-of-this-world parties and social events where the prettiest of the pretty people on the planet hobnob and show off for the camera. Think any of them will turn down a chance to flash their pearly whites?
It makes us wonder why we’re still going through the illusion of a mandate when our most powerful, rich and famous people obviously don’t take it seriously. With some European countries lifting almost all of their COVID 19 mandates, one even declaring the end of the pandemic, it makes you wonder — what in the world are we doing here?
Why should workers across the state be forced to wear a mask while their customers don’t have to, or even refuse to?
Is it possible that Newsom and friends in their own behavior Sunday actually telegraphed along with 80,000 football fans that not only is this pandemic nearly over, but the people are also finished with it?
This pandemic may be over if for no other reason than the conduct of the nation’s leaders has led the American people to decide that it’s over.
Or, maybe Garcetti, Newsom, Breed and their ilk will apologize. And mean it. And absolutely, positively promise that going forward, our most elite and privileged citizens will abide by the same mandates they order the rest of us to observe — under threat of losing our jobs — and if they don’t, they’ll step down so somebody who takes this pandemic seriously can do the job right.
Don’t hold your breath.
—Mike Wolcott is editor of our sister publications the Chico Enterprise-Record and Oroville Mercury-Register
