Back in August, Kevin Stitt named local silver-spooned businessman Bond Payne – the grandson of the great Oklahoma oil overlord William Thomas Payne – as his new Chief of Staff.
Stitt did this because Bond checked all the boxes he looks for when hiring key advisors and cabinet members – wealthy, white, Christian, and has no relevant experience serving in government.
Here's what Stitt said about the hire at the time:
"[Bond] will play a key role in helping us build bridges both inside the Capitol and out in the community. He will be a trusted sounding board for me as we work together to carry out my vision of making Oklahoma a top-10 state.”
Like most trust fund heirs, I'm sure Bond has been a great sounding board for Stitt. I assume his key bits of counsel and advice included such insights as Sure Thing!!!, Way To Go, Sir!!!, and Go Get Em', Boss!!!.
That being said, it looks like he has work to do on the whole "building bridges in the community" thing. Check out this stupid, hot take he tweeted on Saturday night.
Yeah, that's right. As Oklahoma faces yet another alarming surge of COVID-19 cases thanks, in part, to his boss's pathetic, lackadaisical, semi-obstructionist response to the pandemic, Bond – or should we call him Porkchop – hopped on Twitter, followed the GOP handbook, and blamed the media.
Although I'm sure it got him a "You're doing a helluva job, Porkchop!" text from Stitt, the tweet was quickly ratioed and spread across the local Twittersphere like the Coronavirus at an Oklahoma Thanksgiving dinner. This is because...
A. The tweet misrepresented the media response. I follow most of the Coronamania journalist echo chamber on Twitter. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, virtually all of them went out of their way to provide the exact context that Porkchop says they "overlooked."
B. The tweet ignored his boss's shitty response to the pandemic. Seriously, maybe the "media" – whoever that is – wouldn't have to be so "eager to hype" the COVID numbers if your boss didn't seem so hell-bent on enabling COVID'S spread.
C. The dude's username is Porkchop Payne. Oddly enough, that's the same name Topps used for David Payne in their collectible line of stormchaser-inspired Garbage Pail Kids.
Anyway, I have to wrap this up so I can watch my 2-year-old daughter who's not in daycare thanks to the pandemic that the media is hyping. I guess share your thoughts, concerns and all that fun stuff in the comments.
