By John Auchter
Ours is a system of checks and balances. And one of the biggest checks is getting yelled at. Nobody likes to be yelled at, and that’s exactly what getting called to testify before congress is. Some will say, “I look forward to the opportunity.” That’s bullcrap. You may get to give your statement. You may get to defend your actions. But at some point, you are going to get yelled at — your name in big block, highly readable letters right in front of you as that soundbite gets played over and over. And whether the legislators wagging their fingers at you are sincerely passionate or bloviating only to hear themselves speak, it doesn’t matter. You and your super-sized politician, business mogul or (in the olden days) union boss ego have to sit there and take it.
I’m not sure how things will go for Governor Snyder today. I do think he got a lucky draw in that today is St Patrick’s Day and the first big day of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, which might suck a good deal of the public attention oxygen out to the air. I suspect it will get partisan with Democrats tearing into Snyder while Republicans try to nail the EPA to the wall. The cartoon addresses my feeling about that. I just hope some good comes from it for the people of Flint and that the powerful take note to consider more carefully the consequences of their future actions.
John Auchter draws cartoons. Lots and lots of them. You can find them at his incredibly popular website auchtoon.com.
Note: If you want to watch Snyder testify, there’s a link in this Detroit Free Press story.
With God knows how many years of Democrats running everything in Flint, why is it now a Republcan Govenor’s fault with this mess? Not only the politician’s, but the people that elected them over and over. Shouldn’t people take responsibility for their own actions sometime or have I missed something? The expert people that were running the water dept. were let go or left on their own after beating their heads against a brick wall knowing something as tragic as this would probably happen.
Ernie! Because by his own admission, they screwed up? What’s Democratic control of Flint got to do with it? And the people Flint elected weren’t in charge at the time because the governor took over the city and gave all power – all of it – to emergency managers. C’mon.
All the major cities that the democrats have been in charge of for the past 50-60 years have been going downhill. I have yet to hear of a city that has been run by republicans going downhill. They may have some faults in the system, but they are not nearly as bad as the democratic run cities.
Darnell Early who “approved” the switch is a democrat.
If there was a democratic governor in Lansing I do not believe that there would be a call for him to resign.
Andrew there is this point to consider: Why did the state government have to step in and appoint emergency managers on 2 occasions.
The first time it took Ed Kurtz a few years to straiten out the first mess. He turned control back to the city and within a few years the democratic city counsel ran the city right into the ground again.
So yes the democrats are responsible for the situation.
Just look at Detroit. Democrats ran the city and the schools and both are now in deep trouble.
Same with Chicago. It averages 7 to ten gun deaths every week. Chicago has very strict gun laws. The peaceful law abiding citizens obey the law, the gang bangers do not.
I have yet to see a link where a gang banger bought his gun at a gun show.
Snyder, the EPA chief and the EM are taking a good beating over this mess in Flint. Why has no one asked the operators and managers of the water treatment plant in Flint why and how they totally failed in their duties and what they will change when the KWA water source comes on-line soon?