President Obama's Close-Up View of Flint Water Crisis: 5 Key Moments

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FLINT, MI – President Barack Obama sent a simple message Wednesday to Flint residents who have been dealing with lead-tainted water for two years: "I've got your back,” he said during a speech at a Flint high school.

“A lot of you are scared; all of you feel let down,” said the president, whose visit to the city of 100,000 was prompted by 8-year-old “Little Miss Flint,” Mari Copney, who tried to visit the White House while she and other activists traveled to Washington, DC, to watch congressional oversight committee hearings on the Flint water crisis.

The president’s visit came amid calls for a greater federal role in solving the man-made catastrophe, simmering frustration among residents who are wary about water quality even with filters and assurances by officials the water is safe, and escalating tensions among political leaders dealing with the nightmare in Flint.

Here are five key moments that occurred:

Money Shot 1: The Prez and “Little Miss Flint”

We could say something about this, but why? The picture says it all.

Money Shot 2: Gulp

You know that line in “Erin Brockovich,” when the lead character tells lawyers for PG&E, “By the way, we had that water brought in specially for you folks. Came from a well in Hinkley”?

The water was filtered from a tap in Flint and the president didn’t flinch. He drank a glass of it for the cameras, and then remarked:

“I really did need a glass of water; this wasn’t a stunt.”

Michael Moore Is Disappointed

You knew the Flint native, filmmaker and rabble-rouser Michael Moore would have something to say besides this snarky bit:

Moore wasn’t impressed when the president pounded down that water.

"He is just trying to reassure people that everything's okay," Moore told CNN. "To drink from a glass of Flint water when a number of experts are still saying this water's not safe? It's still going through the same corroded lead pipes? It was such a disappointing thing to see.

"Your clip you just showed about he hopes that Flint can get back to where it was. Where was that? You mean before the water crisis two years ago, after we'd lost 75,000 General Motors jobs? Back to then? Or are we talking about back to 20-30 years ago? I mean, Flint is a city that's really been destroyed."

In his 1989 breakout documentary, “Roger & Me,” the former journalist chronicled the struggles of more than 30,000 people who lost their jobs when Roger Smith, at the time the CEO at GM, announced the automaker’s exit from Flint.

Is Don Rickles in the House?

If Moore or some other filmmaker turns the Flint water crisis into a documentary — and it has all the necessary elements, from alleged malfeasance to criminal actions to young, innocent victims who could face a lifetime of behavioral and neurological problems — Don Rickles should play Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.

Because Snyder got no respect. None.

Snyder apologized for maybe the umpteenth time since September — when his administration admitted that the discolored water, often with particulate matter floating in it, that Flint residents had been complaining about for more than a year and a half was, in fact, tainted with lead — and the crowd booed.

Just plain verbally spanked him. These weren't his people.

Yabba Dabba Doo

This may be a thing in Flint, so perhaps it’s wrong to judge. But did Flint Mayor Karen Weaver really say “we all know that Flintstones are resilient”?

No matter.

“We didn’t deserve what happened here,” Weaver said, adding the city does “deserve the resources to fix it.”

Flint residents like LuLu Brezzell, who is Little Miss Flint’s mother, say it’s time for the finger-pointing and blame-shifting to end.

“I think everybody needs to stop fighting,” Brezzell told Patch. “Stop the finger-pointing and start fixing the problems at hand.”

Image credit: President Obama and Mari Copney via the White House