{"id":380,"date":"2016-01-21T11:38:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T16:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=380"},"modified":"2021-04-19T16:01:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:01:06","slug":"a-better-apology-from-gov-snyder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/a-better-apology-from-gov-snyder\/","title":{"rendered":"A Better Apology from Gov Snyder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Governor Snyder apologized (again) for the Flint water crisis this week. This time, I think it truly was an apology.<\/p>\n

In his State of the State message Tuesday, as well as in interviews, he has taken responsibility for the disaster.<\/p>\n

He began his annual State of the State address<\/a> Tuesday by addressing the residents of Flint, saying, “I’m sorry and I will fix it. You did not create this crisis, and you do not deserve this\u2026. You deserve accountability (and) to know that the buck stops here, with me\u2026 Government failed you at the federal, state and local level.\u00a0We need to make sure this never happens again\u00a0in any Michigan city.”<\/p>\n

In an interview <\/a>the next day, he complained of the staff in the DEQ\u2019s Department of Water Quality, \u201cThey were too technical. They followed literally the rules. They didn\u2019t use enough common sense to say in a situation like this, there should be more measures. There should be more concern. And it has led to this terrible tragedy that I\u2019m sorry for, but I\u2019m going to fix. I have to take responsibility for the state\u2019s role in this. These folks work for me. That was a failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up until now, it didn\u2019t seem like Governor Snyder saw the connection between the DEQ\u2019s errors and his own responsibility, but now he does. He still hasn\u2019t completely \u201cAdmitted specifically\u201d what he did wrong–e.g., no mention of the fact that he appointed the city managers who kept opting to\u00a0use the Flint River despite warnings it wasn’t safe–, but he recognizes that “the buck stops here.”<\/p>\n

Another measure of a good apology is a willingness to \u201cAccept the consequences.\u201d Some believe that the consequence should be his resignation. He isn\u2019t willing to do that, but he does seem to realize that another consequence is loss of trust by Flint residents\u2014and others– in their state government.<\/p>\n

Many recipients of apologies complain that they want action, not just words. They want to see \u201cAltered behavior.\u201d Governor Snyder sincerely seems to want to alter government procedures as well as the situation in Flint. Let\u2019s hope he succeeds at both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor Snyder apologized (again) for the Flint water crisis this week. This time, I think it truly was an apology. In his State of the State message Tuesday, as well as in interviews, he has taken responsibility for the disaster. He began his annual State of the State address Tuesday by addressing the residents of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}