A cub reporter some 40 years ago was covering former Gov. Bill
Milliken. He was famous for giving what sounded like insightful
answers to some tough questions, but when you really sat down and
analyzed what he had said, it was cotton candy: tasted good but there
wasn't much to it.
Enter current Gov. Rick Snyder who, despite his short time in the
game, has a long history of being long on the rhetoric and really short
on specifics.
This was painfully apparent the other day when he made a courtesy
call on the State Board of Education which sometimes suffers from the
same malady.
In the space of about five minutes, the audience heard stuff like
this: "I want to see how we can move forward in a positive and
constructive way."
Nothing new there. He's been moving forward in a positive way since
he got in the contest.
Then a few minutes later while on another subject he offered, "Let's
move forward and start looking toward the future." This was just a
theme and variation on his other goodie, "Let's stop looking in the
rear-view mirrow."
But he was still not done.
"I'm really looking forward to learning from you," he stroked the
board, "and have a constructive dialogue (he really likes that word) on
what we think is the best way to move forward together."
And in case anyone was asleep, he even came up with a new twist on
the same old stuff, we need to be "moving forward in a positive way and
taking action. I call it relentless positive action," which from now
will be known as RPA.
Finally as he left the session a silly reporter wanted to know his
position on raising new revenue for the schools.
"We need to have a good dialogue and have a long term path for our
kids," he danced around the question. Meanwhile the education community
wonders what is the path and what are we dialoguing about other than
wanting to dialogue about it?
Good questions.
Minus any substantive answers one is relegated to just move
forward together and do it in a positive and constructive way,,.call it
Snyder-speak.