The name of the game is blame

A little over a month and a half ago, Paul Oram (DON'T SUE!) was taking responsibility for the Flowers Cove fiasco:

My decision's final. I've said that from the beginning.

Now — despite the limited tactical advantage of having a convenient fall guy named Paul, and a fall guy (Paul guy?) who, equally conveniently, is now out of politics — the official narrative is that the entire cabinet was responsible. Oram's replacement, Jerome!, telling the CBC Here and Now audience Thursday night:

... Minister Oram was only the messenger here. The decision was made by cabinet. So it's the full cabinet that was responsible. As for being hung out to dry, our intention is to do what's best for the people of this province, and all I can say, is that when I became health minister, we re-examined the situation, we looked at it, and we determined that the right thing to do was to restore these services.

Of course, on Thursday Happy Day, Danny was only the messenger here, right?

To recap:

First, Paul Oram took responsibility for Flowers Cove.

Then, the health board had the blame assigned to them.

By October, Paul Oram was getting the blame back — even from outside the political fence.

And now the entire cabinet is donning their finest hair shirts, and flagellating themselves down a stand-in Via Dolorosa on Tea House Hill. They all did it.

All of the cabinet, including rural MHAs, were in on the decision to cut rural health care. Et vos, Patty Pottle (Torngat Mountains), Joan Burke (St. George's—Stephenville East), Darin King (Grand Bank), Charlene Johnson (Trinity—Bay de Verde), Tom Hedderson (Harbour Main), Kevin O’Brien (Gander), Jerome! Kennedy (Carbonear—Harbour Grace), Susan Sullivan (Grand Falls-Windsor—Buchans), John Hickey (Lake Melville), and Clyde Jackman (Burin—Placentia West)?

About the only thing left now is for the Premier to announce that he was just "kidding" about the whole clinic announcement in August.