ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

The slow drip of pain started in the morning, when his longtime ally — lobbyist and political consultant David Barklage — was sentenced to probation in a federal tax evasion case. Barklage, who has helped run one of Parson’s political action committees, had pleaded guilty to failing to report more than $150,000 in tax liability from his work on different political action committees several years ago.

The sentence seemed awfully light, but the prosecutor’s sentencing memo was sealed, and at least part of the hearing was conducted behind closed doors, so, as these cases go, perhaps Barklage is cooperating with the feds.

I can see where the fear of something like that might put the governor in a bad mood, which he most definitely was when the Missouri Independent’s Rudi Keller, and two reporters from Columbia University’s broke the news that Parson’s administration had ordered a study about the efficacy of mask mandates. When the study found that mask mandates in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ and Kansas City were helpful in slowing transmission of the virus, , and didn’t release it publicly, until the reporters found it in a Sunshine Law request.

Here’s how Parson’s own director of the Department of Health and Senior Services characterized the study, which, by the way, found similar results to those of other researchers:

“I think we can say with great confidence reviewing the public health literature and then looking at the results in your study that communities where masks were required had a lower positivity rate per 100,000 and experienced lower death rates.�

It’s bad enough that the study contradicted the current Republican orthodoxy, that mandates don’t work, as espoused in the copious lawsuits filed by the man Parson appointed as Missouri attorney general, Eric Schmitt. That Parson buried the study during an ongoing pandemic is a downright failure of his office.

Parson followed that bombshell of a news report by throwing a Twitter temper tantrum, trying to insult Keller, who has been covering Missouri politics for more than two decades. When I first moved to Missouri in 1998, Keller covered state government for the Columbia Daily Tribune, where I had been hired as the city editor. He taught me more about Missouri, its unique culture, state government, its complicated budget process and Civil War history, than I ever taught him as I edited his copy. Never mind that the other two reporters who worked on the story — Derek Kravitz and Smarth Gupta — have impressive journalism resumes of their own and that they showed their work, posting all the data online to go with their story.

Falsely attacking reporters to divert attention from his own failures has become a Parson signature. Which is what made the third part of the governor’s very bad day perhaps the most devastating. Last month, Parson infamously accused my colleague Josh Renaud of being a “hacker� because he found a vulnerability on the state’s website that potentially exposed personal information, namely Social Security numbers of teachers and other school employees (including my wife) to the public. Renaud informed the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education of the flaw and gave them time to fix it before he reported on it.

In turn, Parson accused him of criminal activity. On Thursday, another colleague of mine, Jack Suntrup, reported that before Parson lost his temper, DESE was ready to do what it should have done, which is thank the Post-Dispatch for its responsible and important reporting. Even worse, before Parson ordered the Missouri State Highway Patrol to investigate, state officials had already shared the information with the FBI, which told them there was clearly no “network intrusion.�

With one adviser admitting to a felony, and others steering him away from a “thank you� and encouraging a cover up of public records that contradict Parson’s botched handling of the pandemic, it’s no wonder he’s in such a bad mood.

But, cheer up, governor. The mask mandates in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, the ones that your own study found were effective in slowing transmission of COVID-19, are continuing to work, thus saving lives and somewhat limiting the bad headlines your administration might get as winter arrives.

You’re welcome.

Tony Messenger • 314-340-8518 @tonymess on Twitter tmessenger@post-dispatch.com