How Gavin Newsom has failed California and set fire to his own political prospects

The emperor has no clothes — and no empathy.It’s likely, though, he still does have a standing reservation at the French Laundry.Of course, it’s Gavin Newsom, of whom I write.The smug and ambitious progressive California Governor whose political aspirations went up in flames as Los Angeles continues to burn to the ground, leaving a shocking number of residents’ lives in tatters.And it’s Newsom, who has become the arsonist, setting the fire to his political fortunes with a series of unforced errors — putting a cap on years of mismanagement and abandoning crucial infrastructure in favor of useless far left policies that made social justice and climate warriors feel all warm and fuzzy inside.Since the inferno broke out, Newsom has shown that he’s ill prepared and shameless: shifting blame to others and trying to ditch one of his devastated constituents.It’s like he and the epically feckless Karen “I’d rather be in Ghana” Bass had made a political suicide pact for 2025.As Pacific Palisades was ablaze, Anderson Cooper asked Newsom about the dry hydrant situation there.Instead of owning any failure, he passed the buck.“Look, the local folks are trying to figure that out,” he told Cooper.Actually, Gov., you should have ensured the local folks had it sorted as risks were well known.This all stops with the top, even if it was a “local” issue.

This apocalyptic inferno wasn’t some freak accident in a backwater that no one could find on the map.This was Los Angeles, home to millions, and a city that remains under constant threat of wildfires.Then he cowardly tried to use a fake phone connection to brush off an anguished mother sifting through the rubble of her community.“Governor! Governor! I live here, Governor! That was my daughter’s school!” said Pacific Palisades resident Rachel Dervish, running after Newsom as he tried to hightail it back into his SUV.“I’m literally talking to the president right now to specifically answer th...