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Four recent events might make you wonder who Gov. Neil Abercrombie listens to?

• The most recent is the governor’s futile attempt to have Hawaii government employees pay for their own Medicare Part B. The governor burned a lot of political capital and took a lot of undeserved abuse before it died. His own transition chief, Bill Kaneko, came from the law firm that successfully sued the state and established that there’s no way the state can take benefits from people that they’ve already earned. Could they have talked before all this went down?

• Then there was the governor splashing himself across cable networks and headlines of national newspapers with his promise to take on “Birthers.” He that “he is so incensed over ‘birthers’… that he is seeking ways to change state policy to allow him to release additional proof that the president was born in Honolulu in 1961.” Oops. Maybe he should have first.

• The Legislature still doesn’t have a budget, and isn’t expected to get one until next month. To put it kindly, Abercrombie is late. Yet when he was running for governor, one of his was, “My experience has me ready to go on day one.”

• And let’s not forget the of Neal Palafox, his nominee to be the director of the Health Department.

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