This is Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R, plumbago) wife’s birthday cake.  Really!

The Governor took some time recently away from dealing with the Flint city water emergency to celebrate in style behind blacked-out windows at an upscale Michigan restaurant.

The owner of the boutique bakery said : […] “We knew that renting out West End Grill is not a cheap thing to do on a Saturday night, but we have a lot of high end clients. We just didn’t know this one was the governor.”

The cost of the cake was not divulged but it took 30 hours to bake (build/design?), and the bakery charges by the serving: there were 60 servings in this cake. The outlandish cake seems almost by design to draw contrast to the thousands of Flint residents unable to drink and in some cases even wash with their tap water.

While under management of Gov. Snyder’s hand-picked overseer, the water system of the city of Flint, Michigan (pop. 100,000) became contaminated with high levels of lead. The contamination apparently happened, at least in part, as a result of cost saving measures. Congressional hearings are being held, but Republican Governor Snyder was not subpoenaed. Several members of his administration were forced to testify but Snyder has ‘declined an invitation’ to testify before a congressional committee on February tenth. Guess he must be busy planning his wife’s party, er, I mean, managing the water crisis.

So what is it with GOP governors and the French revolution? Last month Maine Governor Paul LePage  publicly expressed his interest in bringing back the guillotine for criminals. And now Governor Snyder’s cake recalls a similar level of insensitivity to the plight of others as Marie Antoinette’s famous,  “Let them eat their cake” remark directed at starving peasants.

But let’s be fair, Governor Snyder isn’t totally insensitive and he does make sacrifices. With a net worth in 2014 of approximately $200 million, the former venture capitalist and Gateway Inc. president  selflessly declines his yearly state salary of $159,300 and returns it to the state. Still, it leaves him enough for cake.