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mybaycity.com May 4, 2016
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Gov. Rick Snyder manfully fills gallon jugs with Flint water he promises to drink as "penance" for his blunder.

FLINT DILEMMA: Don't Drink the Water -- Or the Kool-Aid

Snyder Needs to Step Aside; Maybe in Favor of Schuette

May 4, 2016       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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Gov. Rick Snyder claims he is he scapegoat for a failed bureaucracy that blew it in Flint.

He is drinking gallons of the tainted, possibly poisoned, water in a show of "see, I'm just one of you folks from Flint" PR stunt.

Leading the media tar and feathers brigade, Fortune Magazine hammered away, its readers naming Snyder one of the world's 19 most disappointing leaders," commenting: "Snyder and his team sparked national outrage after an attempt at cost-savings left the impoverished city of Flint, Mich. with a lead-tainted water supply that is being blamed for illness and brain damage, especially among its youngest residents.

"Called to testify before Congress, Snyder, who touted his competence in his gubernatorial campaign, labeled the experience the "most humbling" of his life -- then attempted to shift blame. He described it as a "failure of government" and blasted the Environmental Protection Agency for its "dumb and dangerous" rules on allowable amounts of lead in water systems."

Despite the condemnation, much of Michigan's voter class is still sipping on the Kool-Aid scenario that claims everyone around the Flint decision-making is to blame but the governor.

We think the Guv is a mainly well-intentioned corporate type turned would-be politician, hoping admirably that he could change the world, like the motley gaggle of job seekers in the GE ad on TV.

But it is the height of irresponsibility for him to continue deflecting blame for the Flint crisis and laying the whole stinking mess at the feet of unnamed and faceless bureaucrats, a generally despised group anyway. He really needs to step aside even if the Legislature names another GOP stalwart -- like unannounced candidate Bill Schuette -- to the job on an interim basis until the 2018 election.

It's time to stop the bleeding of the Pure Michigan image, so hard won at high cost overcoming the Rust Belt connotation.

Schuette would then be empowered to clean up the Flint mess and, if successful, go charging into the 2018 race with colors flying, although angry voters are likely to replace many of the Republicans in the Legislature, especially if they don't get a chance to recall Snyder.

It would make good political sense for Snyder, or the Legislature, to name Schuette an interim governor, who hopefully would be unlike the emergency managers who have so idiotically screwed up Michigan cities and school districts. Schuette may bring common sense back to the office and Snyder could fade into the woodwork, thereby preserving at least some of his reputation.

Snyder should get out of the unrelenting media limelight that right now appears inescapable and unrelenting in its vitriol.

MLive.com has an excellent decision-by-decision analysis just posted online that lays the issue on "a culture of bureaucracy that had a bunker mentality."

The "think piece" by Julie Mack, Ron Fonger and John Counts is headlined: " As Flint was slowly poisoned, Governor's inner circle failed to act."

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/page/flint_water_crisis_leads_to_snyder.html

Again, the Guv dodges the bullet of accountability. The headline should have read "the governor and his inner circle failed to act."

This Flint water debacle is reminiscent of corporate CEOs who ship jobs overseas and close down companies yet receive handsome "golden parachutes" of millions of dollars they don't deserve.

Gov. Snyder is playing the oldest game in the world, saying "I take full responsibility," then proceeds to dodge any repercussions as a result of the blunder and tries mightily to shift the blame to underlings.

A delicate Republican minuet is being performed by Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette who will visit Bay City tonight, Wednesday, May 4, to give a speech at the annual guest night at the Saginaw Valley Torch Club. It will be interesting to see if fellow GOP stalwart Schuette will comment on the governor's culpability in the Flint water case.

If Schuette, who is from Midland, comes on too strong against Snyder (like charging him with a crime as he has done to two lower-level officials) he risks alienating the Republican faithful, the "base" to whom nothing Snyder does will tarnish him in their eyes.

If he handles the matter too clumsily, he risks alienating the mass of the straight-thinking public which doesn't see the world through partisan rose-colored glasses. His ambitions to become governor may well depend on how he strikes the political pose, a pose that may begin to come into focus tonight in his speech at the Saginaw Bay Yacht Club.

The biggest issue and an element often disregarded, is the horrendous costs of massive blunders like that in Flint. We the taxpayers pay, not the ones supposedly "in charge." We pay big time, in this case, hundreds of millions of dollars for a situation that could have been averted by, it is now said, $80 a week for an additive that would have controlled the toxic qualities of the Flint River and kept the lead from spreading.

Iiiiy Yi Yi! & OMG, what a country!



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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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