Gov. Rick Snyder’s message at the top of his State of the State address on Thursday urging more civility in Michigan politics was widely viewed as a public condemnation of Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema’s recent comments that nakedly displayed gay bashing, anti-Muslim prejudices, and were tied to white supremacist views.
Snyder’s comments in his televised speech to a joint session of the Legislature were widely praised as a repudiation of Agema.
Not so, the governor said in an interview with me earlier today.
While demonstrating some coyness, Snyder said his message was not directed at one person. He also did not take on the complaints — from liberals and conservatives — that Agema, a former state representative, is engaging in bigotry, not just incivility.
This is what Snyder said:
“This is the State of the Union address so I’m not going to aim my comments at one individual. I wanted to make a general statement that there are multiple people out there who make comments that I view as inappropriate, because they’re about differences of views or backgrounds.
“We solve our problems in the state by working together, and so I made a call for civility and respect for all backgrounds and all differences.
When asked specifically if his message was not intended for Agema, Snyder responded:
“I leave it to the people to make their own determinations. I made my statement, I stand by it, I’m proud of it. We need to work on it (tolerance) — let’s get better on civility and respect.”
I’m not sure what to make of all this, but I wonder if the governor wanted to issue a broad-based warning aimed at the tea party types who are itching to oust Brian Calley as his lieutenant governor.
OK. Not just Agema but Trucker Randy and Doug Sedenquist too then?
I suspect he can't say Agema because the governor's political consultant is John Yob who runs Agema and pays for Agema to travel to RNC functions. Yob gave Republicans Agema and he gave Republicans Snyder.
"Tied to white supremacist views"….You have no journalistic integrity, do you? That has no basis in reality.
I think I can explain what Chad meant by "Tied to white supremacist views": Agema posted a series of statements alleging bizarre things about people who are gay on his Facebook page that were written by a Georgia Klansman named Edward R. Fields. When media pointed out that the source of eight of Agema's attacks against gay people was a Klan propaganda flyer, Agema stood by his posting.
The fact that Governor Rick Snydholm did an interview with the likes of Chad Swinelewski says a lot about the "Relentless Progressive Action" agenda taking place in Michigan.
Even when attempting to tell the truth, Chad twists his message to promote the Progressive leftist agenda, he and The Paul welday Gop operatives push.