I am suffering from Gamrat-Courser Fatigue, a disease I just made up, caused by publicity-obssessed Michigan Attorney General William Schuette.
For those who may already have forgotten, but I doubt it, Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser are two disgraced former state legislators who lost their $80,000-a-year jobs in Lansing last year because of a sordid extra-marital affair and a bizarre attempt to cover it up.
Though since then the dynamic duo have come up with a radio show, they pretty much have dropped out of the public spotlight. Gamrat, who “represented” the 80th District, which includes Watson, Hopkins and Martin townships, apparently has suffered the added indignity of the dissolution of her marriage.
Yet, Michigan’s “top cop” just can’t let it go. He is seeking a whole lot of publicity from a complaint news media in beating essentially a dead horse with these two pathetic, but retired creatures. Rumor has it that Schuette wants to succeed the embattled Gov. Rick Snyder as GOP governor for the next eight years after 2018. The two are back in Lansing for hearings on possible criminal charges.
Since we live in a society that too often chooses our leaders based on press clippings and celebrity, I sincerely believe Schuette is attempting to make hay while the sun shines and at midnight too. He seems to understand that a horribly tiny portion of the public really cares about issues that matter and instead too many respond to catchy slogans, good marketing and advertising and a fawning media’s favorite.
So from here it looks like Schuette is milking a “tough on crime” image to prosecute a couple of legislative has-beens who need to be put out to pasture.
Furthermore, Schuette not long ago announced an investigation of three figures in the Flint water scandal, though I suspect the three he chose are just red meat he is throwing to the masses. If he really wants to show how tough he is, he ought to take on the governor because “the buck stops here.”
But that would break St. Ronald Reagan’s admonition, “Thou shalt not attack another Republican.”
The Flint water crisis truly was and is a tragedy, yet I don’t see a lot of movement in making things better for the victims. All is see is a lot of political posturing.
And in the awful saga of Gamrat and Courser, about the only right thing I see left to do is somehow restore the legislative aides to these two love birds who blew the whistle on them and lost their jobs as a result. I don’t see or hear Schuette doing anything about that.
Instead, I see a power-hungry attorney general dredging up old, now irrelevant wounds and mouthing empty platitudes and promises in the wake of tragedy that was caused essentially by a government that placed profits ahead of people.
The best remedy for this disease is just to throw the rascals out.
