John Engler Cannot Get Enough Feet Into His Own Mouth

Sam Wilkinson

According to a faithful reader, I'm Ordinary Times's "least thoughtful writer." So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

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16 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    Wow. This is an almost popcorn worthy slow motion train wreck…Report

    • Sam Wilkinson in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      @oscar-gordon If what it takes is his most recent comment – which, good lord dude, maybe think before opening your mouth – then so be it, but it is unbelievable that everything was excused up to now, and suggests that MSU’s goal has always been to get out from under this while taking as little responsibility as possible. (Despite having already paid out $400,000,000+ in settlement money.)Report

  2. Mike Siegel says:

    It’s been like a slow-motion train-wreck. When the train is full of clowns. Bad clowns. Who are on fire.Report

  3. Stillwater says:

    Thanks for writing this up, Sam. I get MSU’s impulse to stop the bleeding from the Nassar wound. Opening up more gushers is a weird way to go about it tho.Report

  4. LeeEsq says:

    There is a disturbance in the force as millions of lawyers release a groan of resignation.Report

  5. It’s yet another case of satire being dead. If you tried to write a story about a politician put in a situation where his usual sleazy moves are completely inappropriate, and his soul being so shriveled that he never figured that out, you probably couldn’t imagine his behaving as badly as this.Report

  6. Jaybird says:

    Dude looks like Don Vito.Report

  7. Dark Matter says:

    John’s training+history is how to be the political/legal hard ass. It’s less him being tone deaf and more this being a mismatch of skills.Report

  8. @dark-matter Nah. He has a long history of thinking that abuse victims owe him their silence.

    The Board Of Trustees failed in hiring him, and he failed at being anything other than what he is and what he obviously was: a tone deaf old man incapable of acknowledging that world isn’t the way he wants it and incapable of adjusting in any meaningful way to that reality.Report

    • Dark Matter in reply to Sam Wilkinson says:

      RE: History.
      Exactly.

      Engler isn’t the guy you call in for sympathy and a I-feel-your-pain approach, he’s the guy you bring in to kick ass, be tone deaf, and step on people who would be sympathetic. You don’t blame the death-to-all-rabbits pitbull for killing a rabbit, that’s why you got him in the first place.

      He was hired to minimize the amount of money the U would pay out.

      Big picture all of this is good news. The U is in pain, not just PR pain, but money-pain. They’re in such pain that they brought in a high profile guy to minimize the loss of money, and his approach failed so badly he’s been fired. Ergo the victims actually have the power to hurt the U.

      What we want is for this to be so fiscally painful for the U that it’s an example for everyone else on what not to do. The “perfect” solution here is for someone to go in and fire everyone who needs firing while retroactively turning the previous administration’s fiscal success record into a fiscal failure record… and the later is more important than the former.

      Big organizations do what is in the best interest of the big organization. There needs to be enough money at stake that they deal with the next Larry much earlier in his career, otherwise senior management won’t view it as worth their time because it will just be a cost of doing business. Trying to focus on getting large organizations to behave ethically is both hard and a constant battle, it’s much easier to just make it in their best interest.Report

  9. CJColucci says:

    Maybe they should give the job to Tom Izzo, though that might be a demotion.Report