Auchtoon!

Also posted online at MLive.com, August 22, 2015

 I’m a bit late getting to this one. I was on vacation when the Courser/Gamrat scandal broke, so I felt I needed find a different angle. A lot has already been said, but the irony of two family-values tea partiers behaving in a manner typically associated with corrupt political-machine bosses has been largely untapped. I couldn’t let that go by. That’s editorial cartooning gold, baby!

Still, I was honestly hoping to find a more positive takeaway from all this. I tried to figure out a way to juxtapose Courser and Gamrat with genuine, selfless public service. If they win the Kilpatrick, who gets the Bing? That would be Dave Bing, the Detroit Pistons star who after his basketball career became a successful entrepreneur and business leader in Michigan.

At the point of comfortable retirement and with a well-earned reputation, Bing sought and got the most difficult job imaginable: mayor of Detroit in the depths of the Great Recession after the city had been bled dry. He made unpopular but necessary decisions with limited power while navigating the uncharted waters of big city bankruptcy. That, my friends, is public service. I don’t expect Courser and Gamrat to be up for a Bing any time soon.

On a personal note, I would like to mention the passing of Richard “Dick” Daly on Tuesday, August 18. Dick was an exceptional public servant in the Flint community, dedicating his professional career to providing positive growth opportunities for citizens of the Flint area, most notably with his work in developing the Flint Olympian and CANUSA Games. Again, that is public service.