Kate O'Day has resigned as commissioner of Children's Services but Gov. Bill Haslam isn't done with defending her. To reporters today, he seemed to blame criticism in the media for making it impossible for her to do her job and refused to concede any mistakes on her part.
"All of us do things," he said. "Heck, I’ve done things wrong as governor today. So I don’t know that that’s a fair question of any of us."
The governor also said he saw nothing wrong with Children Service's charging media outlets $55,000 to collect records showing the circumstances under which children have died since 2009 after becoming the subjects of state investigations of abuse or neglect. The media had to sue the state to win release of the documents, which officials now supposedly are gathering.
