By Avi Gutfreund. New Jersey’s response to last week’s snowstorm was a disaster of epic proportions. In an almost unheard of occurrence, just a few inches of snow and sleet paralyzed New Jersey’s roads and transportation infrastructure. The highways weren’t salted and took hours to get plowed, causing commutes which would ordinarily take no more that 45 minutes nearly 6 hours to complete. The NJSP reported over 500 accidents that occurred during the storm, a testament to the treachery of the roads.

New Jersey’s Department of Transportation chief Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti accepted blame for the debacle, saying she and her department were to blame. NJ’s bungling governor took no such responsibility. In a bizarre press conference held following the storm, Murphy blamed everyone from former Governor Chris Christie to the meteorologists forecasting the storm for the issues on the roads. Murphy was publicly lashing out, flailing around in an attempt to assign blame on anyone but himself and his administration. Of course it didn’t work. It was obvious to all that Murphy made no plans in advance of the storm. Well, he did make one plan. That plan was to dine out in a swanky restaurant… during the storm! He was seen ordering drinks at a high-end bar about a mile from his home as frustrated commuters waited for New Jersey officials to get their act together.

So what exactly is Murphy’s problem? I don’t have any reason to believe he is evil or heartless – it would take something more to make such a suggestion. Rather, I think the Governor is suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It is a concept in psychology when someone is so incompetent and so extremely inept that they are unable to recognize their own inferiority to others. When confronted with a crisis, their illusory superiority takes over, causing them to find others on which to cast blame, rather than appreciate that the only one to blame is themselves.

Murphy demonstrated that in his press conference and throughout is governorship. Every time there is a predicament facing the state, he has never been able to stand up and assign blame on himself or his administration. He invariably dispenses culpability to others, often on those that are not to blame at all, impugning and defaming others in a drastic attempt to keep his imaginary perfect record intact.

We, the citizens of the state of New Jersey, should not stand for this kind of behavior. A man who is unable to grasp that he being governor makes him responsible for keeping the roads passable is unfit to serve as governor at all. A man who tears into others when something goes wrong rather than looking inward to assess what he could have done better, is not the person we need at the top of the New Jersey government.

Governor Phil Murphy is responsible for the debacle on the roads last Thursday. Not Chris Christie, not the meteorologists, and definitely not the commuters who had to get home. It’s important to be clear about it: it’s Murphy’s, and only Murphy’s fault. Everybody and their brother knows that.