{"id":797,"date":"2018-03-23T19:49:01","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T23:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=797"},"modified":"2018-03-25T19:51:23","modified_gmt":"2018-03-25T23:51:23","slug":"editorial-scott-blames-others-avoids-responsibility-after-crises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=797","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: Scott blames others, avoids responsibility after crises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Times March 23, 2018<\/p>\n

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\"Bob<\/a><\/div>\n
Bob Self\/Florida Times-Union via AP Gov. Rick Scott appears to be in a big hurry to begin his expected campaign for U.S. Senate. He moves just as quickly to avoid any responsibility when something goes terribly wrong, from a bridge collapse to a mass shooting.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Gov. Rick Scott appears to be in a big hurry to begin his expected campaign for U.S. Senate, quickly signing the state budget and dozens of other bills into law. He moves just as quickly to avoid any responsibility when something goes terribly wrong, from a bridge collapse to a mass shooting. As voters evaluate the governor\u2019s record in the coming months, they should be mindful of his repeated efforts to deflect criticism and hold him accountable for his administration\u2019s shortcomings.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The latest example of Scott\u2019s aversion to accepting responsibility and his tendency to point fingers elsewhere is this month\u2019s collapse of the pedestrian bridge under construction at Florida International University in Miami-Dade County, which killed six people on the road below it. Hours after the collapse, the governor\u2019s Department of Transportation sent out a “preliminary fact sheet\u2019\u2019 minimizing DOT\u2019s involvement with the bridge and emphasizing in bold type, “this is not an FDOT project.\u2019\u2019 The responsibility was placed squarely on FIU, and DOT was portrayed as doing little more than issuing a permit for traffic control while the bridge was put in place and passing along federal and state money.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, that characterization was misleading at best. The Associated Press reports DOT suggested a design change in the bridge in October 2016 to move one of the bridge\u2019s main supports by 11 feet on the same end where the bridge started crumbling. And an engineer for a private contractor left a voice message with DOT two days before the bridge collapse warning of “some cracking.\u2019\u2019 And DOT officials were in a meeting where the cracking was discussed, and that meeting led to the tightening of steel rods that was continuing when the collapse occurred. Other than that, DOT had absolutely, positively nothing to do with this project.<\/p>\n

After last month\u2019s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Scott quickly demanded that FBI Director Christopher Wray resign after the FBI acknowledged it received a telephone tip that accused shooter Nikolas Cruz owned guns and had expressed a desire to kill people. The FBI never forwarded that tip to its Miami office or acted upon it, and Wray apologized.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, Scott\u2019s Department of Children and Families was involved with Cruz\u2019s family in 2016. And a caller reported to DCF that Cruz had cut both his arms and had said he planned to buy a gun. And Cruz was receiving mental health treatment before, during and after DCF\u2019s investigation from Henderson Behavioral Health, an independent provider. And Henderson told the agency that Cruz was taking medication. Of course, no one called on Scott to resign.<\/p>\n

After 14 patients from a Hollywood Hills nursing home died in the intense heat following September\u2019s Hurricane Irma, Scott voided the home\u2019s state license and cut off its Medicaid funding. As it turns out, nursing home officials called the governor\u2019s cellphone and state agencies seeking help after the power went out and their air conditioning was cut off during the hurricane. And the\u00a0Miami Herald<\/em>\u00a0reported the considerable shortcomings of the required emergency management plans that the state routinely rubber stamps. Of course, Scott deleted the voice mails left on his cellphone, and the Broward state attorney declined to investigate.<\/p>\n

The common thread running through these deadly tragedies is Scott\u2019s practice of blaming others when things go terribly wrong while avoiding responsibility for his administration\u2019s failures. As voters evaluate the governor\u2019s record, they should examine the entire picture rather than his polished version.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Times March 23, 2018 Bob Self\/Florida Times-Union via AP Gov. Rick Scott appears to be in a big hurry to begin his expected…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-25_19-50-40.jpg?fit=862%2C514&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8VBh7-cR","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":624,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=624","url_meta":{"origin":797,"position":0},"title":"Trump Lawyer Says Special Counsel Inquiry Should Be Ended","author":"Donnie","date":"March 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"By\u00a0MICHAEL S. 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