Political "prank" v. "piecemeal fratzing" destruction of public education in MI? I choose the pranksters twice over.

I can't say I can join many of my friends and some political allies in jumping up and down about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's (potential) involvement in virtually shutting down the George Washington Bridge in September during the first week of school and 9/11 memorials. Christie did so, apparently, to punish and taunt political opponents.

Indeed, I think -- at worst -- we can characterize this as what former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani called a "political prank" gone wrong, badly wrong.http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/rudy-giuliani-bridge-scandal-chris-christie-102007.html. A bit of what another pundit has called "old school" politics: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-christie-bridge-scandal-20140108,0,4797921.story#axz...

Of course, I might feel differently if my life was disrupted for a whole week as were many citizens of New Jersey.

But, after venting, I might come to ask the question: what lasting harm was done?

Don't get me wrong: Christie and whoever was responsible should face political consequences and probably criminal consequences.

How?

Can you imagine if a group of teenagers -- and, just for kicks, let's say they were teenagers of color who weren't sufficiently career and college ready for the ACT folks in Princeton, NJ -- organized a flashmob and shut down traffic for only 30 minutes and not just four days?

Christie, et.al. should receive at least the equivalent charges -- the best we can hope for I think in a world that still doles out its punishments by skin color and the propensity to wear a suit or not.

But, again, I can only get so stoked.

We are living in a country and a state where political forces are not just "pranking" their perceived enemies but trying to destroy them outright and, in the course of so doing, destroy public institutions that have succeeded for years potentially causing lasting harm much worse than a traffic jam.

The political venom in Michigan, for example, wrongfully directed at teachers and teachers' unions is on the verge of killing public education, slowly, piecemeal, without the drama of a traffic tie-up.

Every time I read Christie's Deputy Chief of Staff's email saying, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" and "should I be smiling?" I think of, for example, Governor Snyder's Chief of Staff, Dennis Muchmore, writing an email after the skunksworks project -- a secret project designed to undermine all public education in Michigan -- that said, "Frankly, there is nothing I enjoy more than seeing the educational community in a fratz."http://hopgood.senatedems.com/news/article/senate-democrats-blast-snyder-administration-s-latest-ant...

How nice it would be just to have to pay for a political prank by sitting in traffic. Would that skunk works and the "unbundling" of school districts like Birmingham and BHSD was just a prank.

I much prefer the prank, then, to the political piecemeal destruction of public schools in Michigan. If a Governor is going to make war on political opponents, do it in the open, with old time pranks. Making war on political opponents by destroying public institutions is an entirely different matter. And there will come a time, perhaps, when Oakland County politicians who refuse to address this piecemeal destruction openly will look a lot like the sheepish Gov. Christie apologizing. Only given that real damage has been done the state of Michigan and their neighbors won't be terribly forgiving.