MLive business columnist Rick Haglund adds to the growing chorus of criticism of Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson by zinging Patterson with the ultimate (for him) zinger -- he has become Coleman Young, the longtime Detroit mayor whom Patterson has dissed for years.
Haglund writes:
Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson built a political career around demonizing the late Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, who was loathed by many of Patterson’s suburban constituents.
But after more than 20 years in office, Patterson has become Young — a savvy political operator who stayed too long at the party.
At a time when Gov. Rick Snyder and others in Patterson’s Republican Party are helping revitalize a bankrupt Detroit, Brooks has stepped up his verbal assault on Motown.
Haglund's column pivots off a New Yorker magazine profile last week in which Patterson, 75, dumped on Detroit in the way he has dumped for decades and then tried to claim the writer had simply recycled his old quotes.
Haglund also reminds readers Young, who left office in 1993 and died in 1997, began speaking about regional unity from his first moments in office, something Patterson has rarely done. Like Patterson, though, Young served two decades in office and grew cranky and self-important toward the end of his tenure, though the accomplishments of his first 10 years have received increasing recognition with the passage of time.
In other Patterson news, Chad Selweski in Macomb Daily compares L. Brooks to a "crazy uncle" and the chief of the Chippewa Indian Tribe demands Patterson apologize for his "Indian reservation" comment in the New Yorker.
Previously on Deadline Detroit:
