Keller @ Large: Be Careful What You Wish For

BOSTON (CBS) - Every once in awhile a political candidate in the heat of a campaign will say something so smart, you know it has to be inadvertent.

That's what happened when I saw a statement from the chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign demanding that one of the extra Democratic debates being negotiated with Bernie Sanders take place in Flint, Michigan, where revelations about the poisoning of thousands of residents by careless management of the water supply have shocked the nation.

The majority of Flint's residents are black and the vast majority are poor, and Hillary Clinton would like to be seen as a champion of both groups.

It also helps that the lead political villain in the Flint debacle, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, is a Republican.

But the Clinton official's statement says they also want the debate there to "shine a spotlight on what's happening there and in places like Flint around the country."

A great idea, but be careful what you wish for.

As Steven Cohen of Columbia University's non-partisan Earth Institute puts it, "Hillary Clinton's and Bernie Sanders's efforts to make this a partisan issue is cynical presidential primary political pandering. This is a bipartisan mess-up…. [T]he federal EPA and President Obama… should accept blame…as well."

Flint's water supply was compromised by budget cutting, a pathetic statement on the priorities of those in power. But the disaster was also a product of rank governmental incompetence, a chronic problem the next president really ought to be describing their solutions for.

I look forward to the Flint debate, even though it might not be quite the self-serving showcase its proposers have in mind.

Listen to Jon's commentary: