(AP photo)
Former state schools superintendent Tom Watkins, who has become quite the political analyst, sent me a little commentary about the mess facing the city of Detroit that seems right on the mark.
Gov. Snyder wants to impose tough medicine on Detroit and Mayor Bing is throwing it back in the governor’s face. It’s hard to believe that these two mild-mannered officials have sunk to a war of words on such a crucial topic.
Here’s what Watkins wrote:
Niccolo Machiavelli, centuries ago in his famous book, “The Prince,” offered  his analysis to the political theater we are witnessing today (as Gov. Snyder attempts to address long standing and neglected problems in Detroit) when he said:
“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, or more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this ‘lukewarmness’ arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.” 
The choices in front of Detroit range from serious injury — to death:
* Consent agreement
* Emergency manager
* Bankruptcy
Gov. Snyder is taking the heat for over a half decade of a whole bunch of politicians — Republicans and Democrats, sitting in Lansing and Detroit — that have kicked the (can) down the road.
Today, we have reached the point that there is no more “can” or “road.”
If you have a hole in your roof, pretending to fix it does not keep the rain out. It is time to stop the pretending and spending and fix both the short-term and long term structural fiscal holes in Detroit government.
This problem is no “fairy tale” with some magic dust to fix.
The changes needed are painful because they have been neglected for too long. Once upon a time, a Band-Aid or aspirin may have sufficed. Today, major surgery and amputation is required to save the city. This is the reality that needs to be faced.
Stop the games, fix the problem.
When problems are denied and neglected as long as city and state leaders have, the pain is only magnified.
It is downright painful to watch two good, decent men that profess to want what is best for our city and state, to be tangled up in “us vs. them” issues that have the potential — if they have not already — to spill over into a racial divide with no easy way out.
Words have consequences. Mayor Bing calling Gov. Snyder less than honest and “disingenuous” and the governor’s retort being Detroit has a “cultural” problem accepting help, are not advancing solutions to the financial Armageddon facing the city.
As Rodney King once asked, “Can’t we all just get along” and fix this mess?