It turns out Gov. Gavin Newsom can take a vacation. He just has to notify the boss

Gov. Gavin Newsom took the Thanksgiving weekend off to spend time with his wife and children, but unlike the governor’s previous hiatus — which he also attributed to a holiday with family — this one provoked no widespread confusion or speculation.

The reason is straightforward: In contrast to the last time, the Governor’s Office announced this vacation.

Newsom’s trip to Mexico did draw some of the familiar carping and commentary from his Republican critics. Compared, however, with the governor’s 12 days of Halloween, which provoked questions about his abruptly canceled trip to an international climate conference, unfounded theorizing about the effects of his COVID vaccine booster and a mean tweet from first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the reaction was understated.

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That’s appropriate, because of course the governor should be able to take time off with his family. But when the Newsoms and their allies insisted on that obvious point a few weeks ago, what they failed to address was why the governor or anyone else should go on vacation without so much as notifying the boss — in the governor’s case, the people.

After he emerged from his unannounced walkabout earlier this month, Newsom said he had canceled his trip to Glasgow to spend Halloween with his kids and then set about going to the office every day like any other working stiff, only to find himself “bewildered” by the questions he saw “bubble up on social media” in the ensuing days. He said that had nothing to do with him or his office but rather with something “much more profound than that. We’re seeing misinformation weaponized.”

Talk about misinformation. As the muted reaction to his latest, announced vacation revealed, the root of the governor’s problem was not that people were misinformed but that he didn’t bother to inform them.