If there's another side I'd love to hear it. I don't mind Maddow but I'm not a huge fan or anything. I happened to be watching that night because of Bernie's kerfuffle with the DNC (which CNN barely covered).
I hope this piece isn't a hatchet job but I don't have enough experience with her reporting to know what to expect one way or the other. I'd certainly be disappointed if it was.
Maddow has an obsession with the "emergency manager" thing.
States have the authority to do this, and there's nothing inherently anti-democratic about it. (The governor and state legislators who authorize this step are all democratically elected). She seems to be conflating bad decision-making by city leaders with the "emergency manager" system when there's no reason think that there's any connection between the two.
That said, she's 100% right that these people all report directly to the governor, so if they screw up, it's on him. Everything I've read so far is that this is a huge and possibly criminal issue for Snyder. That seems right to me, again based on what's been presented so far.