June 30th 2020, Halfway through the year

Good morning Georgia—

For all his blunders in the managing of the current virus crisis in Georgia, it’s been good to see that Governor Brian Kemp has been modeling appropriate masking for the past several weeks. And yesterday he announced an upcoming flyaround tour of the state when he plans to encourage the use of masks. And post photos of himself wearing proper recommended face coverings. Of course, this being Georgia, he is not about to require masks in public like many other states, calling that “a bridge too far” and then issuing a nonsense quote to defend his decision.

“There’s some people that just do not want to wear a mask. I’m sensitive to that from a political environment of having people buy into that and creating other issues out there,” he said. “But it’s definitely a good idea.”

-Brian Kemp, (and please don’t try to diagram that sentence kids— it might do permanent damage).

But I digress and let’s try to stay positive. At least Brian Kemp these days is acting far more responsibly than his role model the President of the United States— joining with other sane Republican governors to encourage their citizens to wear masks. Great. That’s nice.

What a shame that the week before Memorial Day, the governor hosted the VPOTUS and they basked in the state’s media spotlight within a couple of feet of each other and not a mask in sight. Ignoring the most basic safety and hygiene rules that all the government agencies in the world are promoting. Weeks later, while our state’s surge is arguably worse than it was in the initial freakout shutdown time frame. But since none of us can turn back time, and even Brian Kemp can’t have a mulligan for late May and all of June, maybe the least he could do at this point is to close the damn bars and let college professors require masks if their students for crying out loud.