Go easy on Gov. Murphy. He’s doing the best he can (Opinion)

When you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars and you get out of your career early, you get bored. You look for some way to assuage your wealthy white guilt and you want to do good. You didn't create anything or fix anything. You were just good at playing with really rich people's money and you got filthy rich in the process.

It's totally legal. It's the American dream. But it makes you want to "give back" to the country that gave you the opportunity to become so incredibly wealthy. So, you chart a course to get in there and help. First, you donate tons of your money to big Democratic candidates running for high office. If they win, you get an ambassadorship to a cool country like Germany. When that gig is up you hire some of the best political strategists in the land to craft a plan to run for office.

How about the state you've lived in for a few years? Fine, that works. It's a powerful state and other Goldman Sachs alums like Jon Corzine threw a bunch of money at it and they won. Perfect! Murphy did it and he won. A musical theater buff, economics major from Harvard with an MBA from U. Penn bought the governor's office back in 2017 and he's on his way. Then a bad virus comes along in 2020. You go against the CDC's recommendations and thousands of people in long-term care facilities die. You didn't want that. You were just trying to keep hospital beds open, you know, for the young and viable taxpaying population. It's what any smart economics major would do.

Then you shut down the state, crushing the economy and people's lives, because you don't want those death numbers, the highest rate in the nation, to go any higher. You're questioned about the Bill of Rights and the authority of any American elected official to do such things like keep people from worshiping their faith or going to work. You say that's "above my paygrade," and the truth is that it is. You don't know much about the Constitution or Bill of freakin' Rights!

You're a guilty rich guy who just wants power ... and to help people. But you don't know what the job really entails. Lucky for you, neither do many of your citizens, but some complain that you're destroying the state. Please stop blaming him. He's a musical theater guy who did really well in finance school and the big finance gig and made a lot of money. He doesn't really know much about American government. He's doing the best he can!

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy. Any opinions expressed are Dennis' own.