SEB and Staff Dismissed All Complaints for Lack of Political Disclosure Received and Processed by Elections Board Since At Least 1997

The State Elections Board, and the Staff of the State Elections Board, have dismissed all lack of political disclosure complaints received and processed by the Elections Board since 1997, with the lone exception of the $5,000 finding against the Scott Walker campaign for not putting a political disclaimer on some automated phone calls about the County budget, according to the results of an open records request I filed with the SEB.

Walker's campaign publicly decried the action the SEB took against it as unprecedented and political, so I asked the SEB through an open records request to document the dispositions of all lack of political disclosure complaints dating back 10 years. I just received a response.

George Dunst, legal counsel for the State Elections Board, wrote that he was emailing me "all of the disclaimer complaints that the Elections Board received and processed since 1997. All of our records before 1997 are not on computer and were sent to the State Historical Society where, I suspect, they are sitting in giant boxes with other Elections Board stuff. Any other disclaimer complaints that have been received since 1997 have been handled informally - probably by telephone, but also by informal opinion - some of which you already have as part of the Brown County stadium referendum matter. If someone were truly fascinated by this topic, they could go through our Board materials - meeting by meeting - since 1979. Those are arranged chronologically."

I'm not that interested although some reporter should take him up on it. But the complaints Dunst sent me were interesting because none of them resulted in any punitive action by the SEB or staff. Of course, they were of all different varieties and were dismissed for various reasons, some jurisdictional. But, in addition, as noted previously, Dunst wrote in a 2003 memorandum that the SEB staff's typical protocol for dealing with informal complaints is to ask campaigns to correct the error and then that ends the matter there.

As Dunst wrote in that memo, "Whether the omission occurs on a flyer or handbill or occurs on a yard sign or bumper sticker, source identifications (attributions) are omitted in many more campaigns than are ever the subject of a complaint to the Elections Board. In most or many cases in which this omission occurs, the campaign that has omitted the disclaimer contacts our office before anyone files a complaint and informs our office of the violation. The Board’s staff recommends the appropriate corrective action depending on what type of communication is involved and what may be done to add the attribution. The campaign follows the staff’s recommendation and that ends the matter."

And: "Most of the complaints that the Board’s staff receives about omitted attributions are not in the form of a verified complaint that would require Board action. Most of such complaints are in the form of a telephone call complaining about campaign signs which appear to be missing a source identification. The Board’s staff’s usual protocol, when receiving such complaints, is to inform the complainant that they should contact the campaign and give the campaign a reasonable period of time to take corrective action. If the campaign fails to correct the problem, the complainant may call us back and we will intervene with the campaign. After the second call, the staff will obtain information establishing the location of the offending signs and then contact the responsible campaign to require it to take corrective action. This protocol has been relatively effective."

The SEB also told me that it does not keep track of informal complaints, which, according to the 2003 Dunst memo, are typically handled in the manner described above.

So, the review confirms that, at least since 1997, the most recent records readily available, Walker's campaign stands alone in receiving action against it from the SEB for such an offense.

Here are the cases (some of which I told you about before):

• December 2003. Warring complaints in a South Milwaukee Assembly race by the State Democratic and Republican Parties. Republican Mark Honadel was accused by the Democrats of not putting disclaimers on campaign signs; Democrat Al Foeckler was accused by the Republicans of not putting a disclaimer on campaign literature. (See earlier posting for more details). The SEB dismissed both complaints even though both candidates admitted error to some degree and corrected it.
• September 2004. Complaint of Mary Larson against Ray Saint, a Republican candidate for the 49th Assembly District who lost the race. She alleged Saint campaign signs lacked the political disclaimer. Saint corrected the problem and the Board's staff wrote Larson that it considered this a "satisfactory resolution" to the matter. (See earlier posting for more details).
• August 2005. Complaint of David Payne Against Talmey-Drake Research & Strategy, Inc., Wisconsin Education Association Council, and WEAC-PAC. SEB Executive Director Kevin Kennedy stated in a letter to the parties, "This letter is to inform you of the action taken by the State Elections Board at its July 28, 1999, meeting regarding the above-captioned complaint. After reviewing the complaint and all other evidence submitted to the Board, and after hearing all parties requesting to be heard on the subject, and upon the report and advice of its staff, the Elections Board, by a majority of its members present, voted to dismiss the complaint. The Board declined to find that the subject communications by a non-registrant were subject to ch.11, Stats., or were otherwise required to contain a source identification.” It's not clear from the documents sent to me by Dunst why the letter went out in 2005 on a 1999 case.
• March 1998. Letter to Board from Jack Cummings of Endeavor, Wis. regarding campaign signs that appeared to lack a source identification. In an informal opinion, Board staff wrote, "This letter is in response to your inquiry of February 27, 1998, regarding the validity of campaign signs that appear to lack a source identification. Because your letter seems only to request guidance and does not purport to file a complaint, the Elections Board’s staff will respond to it in that manner. We could not respond to your letter as a complaint because it is not verified. (Regardless of the merits of the allegations or representations contained in your letter, the State Elections Board may not undertake an investigation of this, or any other matter, without having first received a complaint that is verified.) That means that the complainant (yourself) must swear or affirm, before a person authorized to administered oaths (notary), that the allegations contained in the complaint are true to the best of the complainant's knowledge or belief."
• May 2001. Complaint of Richard E. Peterson, Complainant Against WSAW TV 7, Wausau, Wis.; WBAY Channel 2, Green Bay, WI; WFRV Channel 5, Green Bay, WI; and Others. The television stations aired ads that had promoted the candidacy of Elizabeth Burmaster for State Schools Superintendent. Dunst wrote in a memo: "The Board's staff viewed the videotape and, although each ad clearly had a source identification (disclaimer or attribution), the staff had a very difficult time reading the words contained in the source identification." The matter then went to the Board. The complaint was dismissed. Dunst explained to the parties in a letter: "This letter is to inform you of the action taken by the State Elections Board at its May 23, 2001, meeting regarding the above-captioned complaint. After reviewing the complaint and all other evidence submitted to the Board, and after hearing all parties requesting to be heard on the subject, and upon the report and recommendation of its staff, the Elections Board, by a majority of its members present, voted to find that the complaint did not meet the Board's probable cause standard and voted to dismiss the complaint. It was the sense of the Board's members, however, that the stations should be advised that televised campaign advertising has to be reviewed to ensure that source identifications are readable by the television audience. No one disagreed with the proposition that it doesn't make much sense to require a visual source identification if the television viewer is unable to read it. The Board's counsel has been informed that at least one of the television stations has received that advice from its own counsel."
• January 2003. Complaint of Norman Tritz Against Gary Meyer and Gary Meyer for State Assembly. Dunst wrote that Meyer declined to respond to the complaint but the complainant did not serve a copy of the complaint on Meyer, so the Board staff dismissed the complaint. Dunst wrote, "Because the respondent has not disputed that he or his committee distributed communications that failed to identify the source of that communication as required by s.11.30(2) of the Wisconsin Statutes, however, the respondent is notified that any repetition of that failure in the future may result in significant forfeitures the amount of which will take into consideration the current campaign’s failure to comply with that statute that is recorded by this letter. A copy of this letter will remain in the respondent’s campaign finance records on file with the State Elections Board."
• February 2005. JoAnne Gibson of Hazel Green, who wrote: "I am concerned about a mailing I received before the recent November election. The issue is who paid for and who promoted the group "All Children Matter" from Grand Rapids, MI? ..." All Children Matter is not required to register with the SEB and did not use express advocacy, argued the respondent. Dunst wrote, "This letter is to inform you of the action taken by the State Elections Board at its January 26, 2005, meeting regarding the above-captioned complaint. After reviewing the complaint and all other evidence submitted to the Board, and hearing any party who wished to be heard on the subject, and upon the report and recommendation of its staff, the Elections Board, by a majority of its members present, voted to dismiss the complaint. Notwithstanding the dismissal, some Board members expressed their frustration that the Board’s own rules preclude its ability to regulate the type of campaign activity described herein."

• I also received a response from SEB in regards to my question about the 2000 telephone calls featuring Green Bay Packers President Bob Harlan that encouraged people to vote for a sales tax to help renovate Lambeau Field. The calls didn't include the full political disclaimer. An Elections Board lawyer told the Journal Sentinel he "doubted any enforcement action would be taken unless a formal complaint was filed." I asked the SEB what happened in that case. Here's the answer:
• "We never received a sworn complaint with respect to the Packer referendum.We had a number of telephone inquiries and some written questions as you can see from the attached correspondence. We did not have jurisdiction over any alleged campaign finance violations because this was a county referendum. The District Attorney is responsiblefor enforcing campaign finance law with respect to local elections.The State Elections Board has the authority to conduct investigations on itsown motion. As a practice we require a sworn complaint. Our experience is that many allegations made in the media are not substantiated or are donefor political ends. We require a sworn complaint that alleges facts which if true would be a violation of campaign finance or election law. We also require that a copy of the complaint be served on the respondent before itis filed with our office. see our complaint procedures in ElBd Chapter 10,Wis. Adm. Code.We do initiate enforcement actions based on information identified from ouraudit of campaign finance reports. Kevin J. Kennedy, Executive DirectorWisconsin State Elections Board."

New pic

Nice elephant!

Dennis York

Blogger Dennis York proves once again that you don't have to have professional writing experience to really nail this blogging thing (well maybe he has it - I will be honest, I still have no idea who this guy is, I just know he's really good). This guy is really insightful and funny. He's got posts on Dan Vrakas' mustache and his take on Bill Christofferson's incessant writing about me on his blog is rather humorous (that one's going to really keep me up at night - Bill, the color was for you). At any rate, York's also got a really funny posting about his unintended blogging fame. In more proof that blogging is really taking off in Wisconsin (Charlie Sykes just had a great column on this too), York was recently asked to be on a Wisconsin Public Radio program because of a posting he made. He writes:

So just a little background on my blog - I essentially just started it to make the guys I work with, and other guys that are in politics (that feed me the good stuff) laugh. If there's a little bit of perspective and opinion thrown in here or there, that's kind of just extra.Well, this thing has gotten completely out of hand. Bloggers who are a lot smarter and better than I have started linking to my site and people are actually starting to read it, which really was never supposed to happen. It's actually kind of embarrassing.Last Friday, I got an e-mail from Wisconsin Public Radio, who wanted me to go on air for an hour to debate Bill Christofferson (Xoff) about my "Five Best Democrats in Wisconsin" post (note: WPR didn't know my blog existed until the lefty bloggers started linking to it - interesting).

The last point is, in typical York fashion, insightful. I agree with him about blogs. I am fascinated by the well-developed network of bloggers and I am amazed about the ability of a person sitting at home in his or her pajamas to attract an audience (I know the sitting in pajamas thing is a cliche, but hey, sometimes it's true - look at the time). In conservative circles, blogs are fast becoming (if they are not already there) a real sibling to Talk Radio as an alternative to the MSM.

Leaving politics behind?

Dan Finley is discovering that he's far from leaving politics behind - he's waded into a veritable political hornet's nest. Not that he didn't expect that; I am sure to some degree he did. But I think it's unfortunate his honeymoon has lasted roughly a few days. Pulling together behind the new museum chief would be the right thing for assorted Milwaukee County officials to do. Everyone should be focusing on the same goal: Fixing/saving the museum. The carping over Finley's salary seems petty, unfair and counterproductive. I hope these county supervisors (who don't approve his salary yet have a couple of their noses bent out of shape over it) don't intend to be the same burrs in the saddle they've been to Scott Walker and his reforms. The county supervisors carping over Finley's pay should consider the following:

1. Dan Finley might have made half as much as County Executive but he gave up a position with incredible job security to run the museum - a position with incredibly poor job security. He deserved to be compensated for that. There's a very real chance he could have been County Exec of Waukesha County for life. A County supervisor is attacking Finley for supposedly not sacrificing. In the way I just described, he certainly did. If the museum tanks, he's out of a job, and the museum is certainly teetering on the financial precipice.
2. It's really unfair to pressure a person who just gave up a longstanding, respected career for a new job at a certain salary to be expected now to reduce that salary.
3. If you want someone with Finley's skills and experience, then that person will be very marketable so you're going to have to pay them a fair salary as determined by what the market will bring. I'd venture to guess there are arenas where Finley could make a good deal more.
4. It's unfair to say Finley deserves less because he doesn't have museum credentials like Michael Stafford. Look how much good those museum credentials did the museum before. Finley brings different and much needed skills to the table.
5. The pay is not out of the norm for other museums or cultural institutions.

I am friends with Finley, so people can judge this commentary however they want. But it just really bothers me. Here's a decent guy who wades in to attempt a very difficult task for this community (and yes, at a decent salary) and rather than rallying around him to try to assist him in that task, people sit on the sidelines and snipe. If he was making 300 K, I might understand it.

Treadmill politics

So I go to the health club Monday evening and who should I see on the treadmill next to me running at breakneck spead.... Dan Vrakas. We had an interesting conversation for quite some time. In some ways, Waukesha is still like a small town because you're always running into someone you know.

Some average guy Vrakas didn't know came up to him while we were talking and shook his hand and congratulated him on getting "Mrs. Finley" onto his team. Then, the guy turned to me and said he sees me on TV. I never underestimate the power of the electronic media. Write stories for 10 years in the paper and no one knows who the heck you are. Go on TV a couple times and you get recognized in your workout clothes.

Interesting

Blogger James Wigderson has a rather fascinating posting that illustrates the dangers of trying to predict the news...

Finley/Vrakas alliance

The surprise twist is that Jenifer Finley is NOT running for County Exec and is going to be the campaign manager for State Rep. Dan Vrakas (R-Delafield), who has already declared his candidacy. It makes sense because they've worked together for years (he was on her board of directors at the Up Connection) and are similar politically - Conservative Republicans. When I heard this, I was surprised at first, but realized quickly that this was the best thing for all parties. Vrakas is rolling up A LOT of support really fast. This is a big thing for him because of Jenifer's name recognition. He's got the Party support too and a lot of key players moving into his camp. Jim Dwyer is a really nice person, and a very good County Board chairman, but I would be surprised if he could beat back what is starting to become a Vrakas tidal wave. (I've always liked Dan Vrakas; as I said in an earlier posting, he's a really good guy and a solid legislator who I've talked to many times. He's also been really good to Paul over the years. And as mentioned before, Jenifer Finley is a close friend of mine.) To learn more about his legislative accomplishments and history (he was also a small business owner - running a downtown Waukesha restaurant) click on the link to wispolitics under the word candidacy above.

Vrakas has got a lot of name recognition of his own in Waukesha because of his work as a leggie and his father's long political career (see earlier posting for a listing of the offices his father held). When you put all that together, I would be surprised if we don't have County Exec Dan Vrakas in a couple months, although politics can be unpredictable. And look for one of the first things he'll do is to push the tax freeze idea. That's the way it's looking right now. Expect other big endorsements this week - soon.

Here's the statement Jenifer just gave at the press conference with Vrakas in Waukesha. Vrakas didn't have his statement in writing when I got this one or I'd put that up too.

JF Announcement

August 8, 2005

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming. To begin, I want to express my sincere appreciation to the many people who guided and supported me in making my decision about running for the position of Waukesha County Executive. These wonderful people come from a wide spectrum of political and non-political walks of life, but simply had only my best interest in their hearts as they talked to and listened to me. I am deeply gratified and touched by their support and I will never forget their compassion.

However, after thoughtful consideration, I have decided to not run for the position of Waukesha County Executive. I have decided to follow a different destiny and I am excited to share that with you, but first, I would like to take just a moment to project my thoughts from a spiritual sense. “Everything that happens in this world happens at the right time for the right reasons”.

Perhaps you are curious as to why I have chosen to not enter into the race, so let me explain that the basis of my decision is quite simple: the timing just did not feel right. The compressed nature of the election would not have afforded the citizens of Waukesha County enough of an opportunity to truly come to know who I am as a person, my beliefs and my qualifications. The main reason that I even considered entering into the race was my desire to give back to this community and because I was qualified to do the job. However, there are so many other ways that I can support and give back to this great community.

On that note, I am pleased to announce that I will serve as the campaign chairperson for Representative Dan Vrakas and will be 100% behind getting him elected as the Waukesha County Executive. I am honored to take on this important role in Dan’s campaign because he is the right person to lead Waukesha County. He is strong in his convictions and is a compassionate man as well. He is a tested and proven leader. I am able to speak to his leadership directly because he served for many years very effectively as a member of the Board of Directors when I was the executive director of a non-profit community organization. There are so many other areas of Dan’s demonstrated leadership that I could comment on, however, this one in particular, I witnessed first-hand.

Please note my opinion of Jim Dwyer, whom I have known a long time and consider a friend. Jim is well suited in his current post as County Board Chairman. As Chairman, he is able to provide continuity to the Board. He has brought and will continue to bring so many strengths and successes to the Board. I am very confident that Dan Vrakas and Jim Dwyer would make an incredible team with Dan as the County Executive and Jim as a County Board Chairman - together they will move Waukesha County forward into a new era.

The position of County Executive is critical to not just maintaining Waukesha County as the best place to live, raise a family and/or have a business – the new County Executive must make it an even greater place than it is today.

For over 15 years, I have known Dan Vrakas: friend, business owner, a community leader and a father and of course as a legislator. I know that he will be successful in his efforts to freeze taxes as he works with state and federal legislators – many of with whom he has long-standing, established relationships.

As an ambassador and advocate for Waukesha County, he will not accept a quick fix, but he will work swiftly toward finding viable solutions that will successfully lead to a tax freeze. I promise you that he will continue his common sense and progressive leadership in being fiscally conservative. However, Dan will not exercise fiscal conservatism in Waukesha County by simply eliminating programs.

Again, thank you and know that I will call upon your support to get Dan Vrakas elected as Waukesha County Executive.

My final mention is to thank my husband, children and our families for all they do to support me in what I believe is the right thing.

At this time, I would like to turn it over to Representative Vrakas, our future county executive for further comments.

****

Doyle/Lautenschlager

I heard from a Democratic activist who is usually in the know that AG Peg Lautenschlager is going to slam Doyle's budget vetoes as unlawful and unconstitutional. The activist made it sound like this was a done deal. I have no idea if this is true, but the person in question said the law was clear and that this would happen probably within the week.

I will withhold any commentary since my husband is running against Lautenschlager. And you could certainly wonder why the activist would say this in front of me, in light of that fact, although I have a theory on that point simply because of how it unfolded (I won't share it). But, since this person is generally in the know, and runs in the right circles to know, we'll see how it plays out. I did notice from the paper that Doyle and his crowd already seem to be bracing for such a development by trying to downplay its significance in advance. All I will say is that there is no love lost between Doyle and Lautenschlager and this would take it to new heights, if it pans out.

Update: Hmm, looks like the Democratic activist is less in the know than purported... or was purposely trying to mislead....

More Doublespeak

The Cap Times nailed it with this one.

Surprise Twist

There will be a surprise twist in the Waukesha County executive race on Monday morning. I know what it is, but I can't reveal it yet. All I will say is that I think it's a really good decision for all parties involved. But it will definitely surprise people.

Oh to be a fly on the wall at the Waukesha County picnic...

I was on Saturday and attendees included County Executive prospects Jim Dwyer and Jenifer Finley in a relatively small environment at a County park. At first, I wondered (and so did everyone) how they'd interact with each other, since they've known each other for years and Dwyer is a declared candidate and Jenifer has been publicly toying with the idea of running herself. But here's the cool thing about Waukesha County politics - it's almost like a family. They actually talked for quite some time and they made it clear that no matter what happens, no hard feelings. They had a good and friendly conversation, like always. Sometimes political loyalties and loyalties, period, can conflict in politics so it was great to watch two people handling the situation with so much class.

We're Not Afraid, Part 2

Got to tout the blogosphere a minute. The Los Angeles Times and the Journal Sentinel (the latter in a front-page story today) just told you about the Web site We're Not Afraid. I told you about it on my blog on July 12.

Local Hero

The story in the Journal Sentinel on Eugene Free, the club basketball coach who's inspired all of his team's seniors to go on to college was a great piece of work and an inspirational read. Proof that one person can make a difference in some of Milwaukee's toughest neighborhoods. Kudos to the paper for finding the story and playing it so prominently.

The State Elections Board's Protocol in Many Political Disclaimer Cases: Correct it and "that ends the matter"

After the State Elections Board levied a $5,000 fine against Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker this week for not placing a political disclaimer on some automated telephone calls to citizens about the County budget, Walker's campaign alleged the Democratic-appointed majority Board's action was political and unprecedented. Walker's campaign noted that the campaign caught the error itself at 11 a.m. the first day the calls started rolling out, and fixed the problem, adding the disclaimer on the rest of the calls. The calls numbered 40,000 altogether and rolled out over two days, although the campaign said it could not say how many calls went out without the disclaimer, Elections Board documents show. The Walker campaign then self-reported the error to the State Elections Board and County Election Commission authorities. Walker was not a declared gubernatorial candidate at the time. The State Elections Board took up the matter months later after receiving an official complaint from two County Supervisors who have been longtime Walker critics.

On the other side, some who support the Board's action argue that Walker and his team made too many contradictions to escape enforcement. An example:

They are pointing to Walker's comments in a Nov. 4, 2004 (date posted) story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which stated: The calls, organized by Walker's former chief of staff and campaign aide, Jim Villa, began Thursday afternoon, Walker said. That would be Nov. 4.

But the campaign told the State Elections Board the calls were STOPPED at 11 a.m. Nov. 4. The Elections Board's attorney, George Dunst, also wrote in a memo to the Board that the campaign offered only "very tepid support, at best" to back up its contention that the message originally contained the source identification that was initially left off calls. He also wrote that "one might have expected" either the campaign or its vendor, or both, to take responsibility for the missing disclaimer.

But what has the State Elections Board done in other cases where a political disclaimer - one of the most common and minor types of campaign violations - was missing and then corrected by a campaign?

Warring complaints from both political parties in a 2003 South Milwaukee Assembly race are particularly instructive on that matter, not only for the Board's decision (more on that in a minute), but because of the written memos by longtime veteran State Elections Board Legal Counsel Dunst in those cases (by the way, political insiders tell me that Dunst is respected and pretty much regarded as apolitical). Dunst, who also wrote the memo to the Board in the Walker case, lays out the State Election Board's typical protocol in many lack of political disclosure cases (the Walker campaign offense) in his 2003 memos. In essence, he writes that the normal protocol is to give a campaign a chance to take "corrective action" and, if that's done, that's the end of it, at least in cases where an official complaint has not been filed (he was referring in some - but not all - of his comments to cases in which telephone complaints were made or where campaigns self-disclosed in advance of a complaint and not where there were verified complaints). Still, there were complaints lodged in the 2003 cases and that's exactly what happened in those cases - nothing. The cases are even more instructive because they involved both political parties. And, a year later, another complaint in a different case was filed but resulted in no enforcement action beyond having the candidate correct the error (more on that at the end).

Some highlights from Dunst's memorandum to the Board to whet your interest before we lay out the specific facts:

• "Where the omission has occurred in campaign literature that has been distributed, corrective action is, effectively, limited to any remaining literature that has not been distributed. Under those circumstances, the staff does advise the campaign to send the Board a letter acknowledging the error and describing whatever corrective action was taken. That letter is placed in the candidate’s file, but no further action is taken. This protocol has also worked very well."
• "What the two complaints establish is that during the course of a campaign for elective office, mistakes are made and, perhaps, the most commonly occurring mistake is the omitted source identification (commonly misnamed: “disclaimer” and more accurately referred to as “attribution”)."
• "Whether the omission occurs on a flyer or handbill or occurs on a yard sign or bumper sticker, source identifications (attributions) are omitted in many more campaigns than are ever the subject of a complaint to the Elections Board. In most or many cases in which this omission occurs, the campaign that has omitted the disclaimer contacts our office before anyone files a complaint and informs our office of the violation (as appears to almost have been the case with Mr. Foeckler). The Board’s staff recommends the appropriate corrective action depending on what type of communication is involved and what may be done to add the attribution. The campaign follows the staff’s recommendation and that ends the matter."
• "Most of the complaints that the Board’s staff receives about omitted attributions are not in the form of a verified complaint that would require Board action. Most of such complaints are in the form of a telephone call complaining about campaign signs which appear to be missing a source identification. The Board’s staff’s usual protocol, when receiving such complaints, is to inform the complainant that they should contact the campaign and give the campaign a reasonable period of time to take corrective action. If the campaign fails to correct the problem, the complainant may call us back and we will intervene with the campaign. After the second call, the staff will obtain information establishing the location of the offending signs and then contact the responsible campaign to require it to take corrective action. This protocol has been relatively effective."

There's more. But first off, here are the basic facts, according to Elections Board documents and memoranda:

On July 15, 2003, Kimberly Warkentin, Wisconsin Executive Director of the State Democratic Party filed a complaint against Republican candidate Mark Honadel and his campaign committee, Honadel for Assembly. Mark Honadel (the eventual victor in the race and pictured at right) was a candidate for the 21st Assembly District seat at a special election held on July 22, 2003. The complaint alleged that the respondents failed to include the source identification required by s.11.30(2), Stats., on yard signs displayed throughout the 21st Assembly District.

Elections Board documents state that Honadel responded by acknowledging that “two of the sixteen signs had disclaimers that were either missing or had worn off,” but asserted that he immediately took corrective action. His response reads as follows:

"I am responding to a complaint filed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, in which they allege disclaimers are missing from printed signs in my campaign. I believe their claims to be false, as all my yard signs were printed with proper disclaimers. And since the complaint filed apparently showed no proof of any missing disclaimers, I have no way of knowing what printed material was missing disclaimers. Nevertheless, upon hearing of the complaint, I did a review of our larger 4 foot square plywood signs and discovered that two of the sixteen signs had disclaimers that were either missing or had worn off. Disclaimers were immediately written on those signs with a marker and the situation was rectified. Given that one of these larger signs happened to be located on property next to my opponent’s campaign headquarters, perhaps this was the missing disclaimer the Democratic Party was referring to."

On July 14, 2003, Republican Party Executive Director Richard Wiley had filed a complaint against Democratic Candidate Al Foeckler, a candidate for the same Assembly seat, and against Friends of Al Foeckler, the candidate’s personal campaign committee. The complaint alleged that the respondent failed to include the source identification required by s.11.30(1), Stats., in some of his campaign literature that was distributed publicly, and also alleges that candidate Foeckler did so intentionally and criminally in violation of s.11.61, Stats.: specifically a handbill.

On July 16, the Elections Board received the following communication from Foeckler, documents state:

"It has been brought to my attention that one of my pieces of campaign literature was inadvertently printed without the disclaimer indicating that my committee had paid for it. This error has been addressed and the remaining copies of this particular piece have been returned to the printer for correction. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please inform me if any further action should be taken. …"

Dunst wrote the Board in his memoranda on both cases:

"DISCUSSION (The discussion of the Foeckler and Honadel complaints found in each memorandum is identical because the complaints are virtually identical.)

The Honadel and Foeckler complaints are and ought to be discussed together because they are not just similar, but because they are identical: only the names, the addresses and the subject matter, (campaign literature versus campaign signs), have been changed. The two complaints have been reproduced side-by-side as an exhibit to this memorandum to demonstrate that they are, virtually verbatim, the same complaint with the Democratic Party merely having changed the respondent from Al Foeckler, the Democratic Party’s candidate for the 21st Assembly District seat in the special election to Mark Honadel, the Republican Party’s candidate for the 21st Assembly District, in the special election on July 22, 2003.

Complainant Warkentin’s point in reproducing the Republican Party’s complaint appears to be not only that people in glass houses ought not throw stones, but, also, that anyone can find a source identification (disclaimer) violation in almost any or every campaign, and, most importantly, that disciplinary action, if any, against the Foeckler campaign should be matched with equivalent disciplinary action against the Honadel campaign. The respondent’s real message is probably that enforcement action should not be taken against either campaign.

What the two complaints establish is that during the course of a campaign for elective office, mistakes are made and, perhaps, the most commonly occurring mistake is the omitted source identification (commonly misnamed: “disclaimer” and more accurately referred to as “attribution”). Whether the omission occurs on a flyer or handbill or occurs on a yard sign or bumper sticker, source identifications (attributions) are omitted in many more campaigns than are ever the subject of a complaint to the Elections Board. In most or many cases in which this omission occurs, the campaign that has omitted the disclaimer contacts our office before anyone files a complaint and informs our office of the violation (as appears to almost have been the case with Mr. Foeckler). The Board’s staff recommends the appropriate corrective action depending on what type of communication is involved and what may be done to add the attribution. The campaign follows the staff’s recommendation and that ends the matter. Most of the complaints that the Board’s staff receives about omitted attributions are not in the form of a verified complaint that would require Board action. Most of such complaints are in the form of a telephone call complaining about campaign signs which appear to be missing a source identification. The Board’s staff’s usual protocol, when receiving such complaints, is to inform the complainant that they should contact the campaign and give the campaign a reasonable period of time to take corrective action. If the campaign fails to correct the problem, the complainant may call us back and we will intervene with the campaign. After the second call, the staff will obtain information establishing the location of the offending signs and then contact the responsible campaign to require it to take corrective action. This protocol has been relatively effective. Where the omission has occurred in campaign literature that has been distributed, corrective action is, effectively, limited to any remaining literature that has not been distributed. Under those circumstances, the staff does advise the campaign to send the Board a letter acknowledging the error and describing whatever corrective action was taken. That letter is placed in the candidate’s file, but no further action is taken. This protocol has also worked very well.

In each of the two complaints herein, the candidate took whatever corrective action he could after becoming informed of the problem – candidate Foeckler said that “This error has been addressed and the remaining copies of this particular piece have been returned to the printer for correction” and candidate Honadel said “I did a review of our larger 4 foot square plywood signs and discovered that two of the sixteen signs had disclaimers that were either missing or had worn off. Disclaimers were immediately written on those signs with a marker and the situation was rectified.”

The question for the Board is whether, given the described circumstances, any enforcement action ought to be taken against either or both of the campaigns. If enforcement action is taken against the campaigns, that raises a question about the Board’s staff’s protocol when receiving telephone complaints about campaign signs with alleged omitted source identifications. "

So what did the State Elections Board do in both of the matters?

DISMISSED! That's right. The Board dismissed both complaints and took no enforcement action, in December 2003.

Here are the Board minutes. Not everyone on the Board at the time was the same as in the Walker matter. The Board members who were the same were: Democratic appointees Carl Holborn and Shane Falk, Republican appointee John Savage, and Libertarian Kirby Brant. The minutes say only that the motion carried and don't specify if everyone voted for it.

As an aside, you may also notice that in the minutes, Attorney Michael Maistelman appears on behalf of Gov. Jim Doyle and the Doyle for Wisconsin Campaign Committee in an unrelated alleged election violation complaint maintaining that Doyle and his committee failed to disclose occupation and employment information on contributions from individuals (also not a serious violation). The complaint was also dismissed. Maistelman is the same lawyer who filed the complaint against Walker on behalf of the two supervisors.

Case 2 (I have the documents but summarize them below for the sake of space)

September 15, 2004

Re: Complaint of Mary Larson, Complainant Against Ray Saint, Respondent (my note: Saint was a Republican candidate for the 49th Assembly District who lost the race) ElBd Cpt.04-11

Candidate: Ray Saint; Complainant: Mary Larson; Author of letter: George Dunst, Elections Board legal counsel; Issue: Larson filed a complaint that alleged that Saint did not put a political disclaimer on campaign signs.

Dunst wrote to Larson: “Mr. Saint has given a sworn statement in which he swears that he believes he has “ reached all the signs in question and made them legal by putting the disclaimer on each of them. . . . I believe I have corrected each of the signs in question and actually a few others that I have found.”

“But, as always, if you or anyone else is aware of a sign that is without a source identification, his campaign should be notified and the problem will be rectified. Mr. Saint appears to be sincere in his efforts to get his campaign signs in compliance with s.11.30(2), Stats. The Board has always taken a benevolent and understanding approach with respect to campaign signs whose source is manifest and unambiguous.”

“Once again, the Board’s staff believes that this is a satisfactory resolution to your source identification complaint, but if you have any further comment or recommendation, or if we can be of any other assistance, please let us know.”

August 11, 2004

Earlier letter in same case by Dunst to Larson:

“Dear Ms. Larson:

Enclosed please find the response of the respondent, Ray Saint, to the complaint filed by you with the State Elections Board, in regard to Mr. Saint’s failure to include a source identification (disclaimer) on some of Mr. Saint’s campaign signs. Mr. Saint says that he has attempted to affix a source identification to all of his campaign signs that were printed without one, but if you or anyone else is aware of a sign that is without a source identification, his campaign should be notified and the problem will be rectified.

The Board’s staff believes that this is a satisfactory resolution to your source identification complaint, but if you have any further comment or recommendation, or if we can be of any other assistance, please let us know.”

New tax?

I asked Dan Finley (who is a friend of mine) what he thought about all the speculation that the new cultural district he's calling for means he supports/is calling for a new taxing district. He repeated what he told the Journal Sentinel editorial board in the interview that resulted in the cultural district story: "This does not mean a new tax." Actually the story quoted him as saying, "This is not about suggesting a new tax."

Xoff

I really prefer not to respond to Bill Christofferson these days but he keeps writing about me and I'm afraid I have to correct two factual errors that he has made in recent blog postings:

1. He said that my husband sponsored a fundraiser for Scott Walker. My husband is staying neutral in the governor's race right now (I believe all the statewide candidates are neutral; that's just the way it works). He has not endorsed either Mark Green or Scott Walker. He also did not sponsor a fundraiser for Scott Walker. I know what Bill Christofferson is talking about, because a fundraiser invite for Walker was sent out some time ago by a Waukesha civic leader. It had Paul's name listed as a member of the Host Committee. The man who sent this out did so without asking my husband if he could be listed on it. Had he asked, my husband would have said no, because he's staying neutral. My husband did not even attend that fundraiser, nor has he given either candidate money. So, I understand how Christofferson came to that conclusion, but it's factually not true.
2. Christofferson says I never reported that Elizabeth Kastner's charge was dismissed. Not true. I updated my blog posting several days ago the second I learned of it. It was an open charge when I made the posting. He could have seen this if he'd checked my blog.
3. And since he raised it, I don't have a problem with him alerting his readers that I am the wife of Paul Bucher, AG candidate, when he posts on me. In fact, I disclose that fact on the side of my blog because I think people have a right to know. When I started writing a monthly column for wispolitics, I asked them to put that disclosure at the bottom of all my columns. Several people later mentioned to me that they thought it was sexist for me to have to do so, but I don't agree. As long as Paul's a statewide candidate, I feel it should be disclosed when I write about politics, even though my opinions do not represent his opinions and my political commentary predates his campaign. At the same time, people should not automatically assume that what I think or write matches what Paul believes. My opinions represent my opinions. Paul and I agree on a lot, but we don't agree on everything - no couple does. What has bothered me a little though is Christofferson thinking he can rename me by giving me a hyphenated name (or the equivalent of it: McBride/Bucher). What I call myself is my decision, not his, and I personally think it's a bit sexist of him to take it upon himself to rename me. I'm not losing sleep over it, trust me, but since he raised it....

Another interesting Waukesha Co. race

Word is circulating that former Menomonee Falls Trustee Chris Slinker (most recently staff assistant with the US House Judiciary Committee under the helm of Jim Sensenbrenner) is gearing up to take on State Rep. Sue Jeskewitz (R-Menomonee Falls). Look for a lot of fur to fly as Slinker has been in a lot of news controversies. Apparently, Slinker is already putting together a campaign team and word is spreading fast that he's going to announce soon. Look for Slinker to mount a campaign from the hard Right.

Jenifer's deadline

Will she or won't she? I am told Jenifer Finley will make her decision on the County Executive race by Monday.

Bipartisan?

Once the county election office opened today, I checked out a claim that the Scott Walker campaign made in its official statement responding to the State Elections Board's Wednesday fine for lack of a political disclosure on some automated phone calls. The statement on wispolitics by John Hiller and the campaign reads: "In May of 2005 the bi-partisan Milwaukee County Elections Commission voted unanimously to take no action on this matter."

Well, according to the County Elections Commission, in May 2005, there were two Republicans on the County Commission and one Democrat. There are now two Democrats and one Republican on it, but that's only as of July 1, according to the Commission. Thus, the Milwaukee County Elections Commission was bipartisan only inasmuch as the State Elections Board is bipartisan by having a mix of Republicans and Democrats. Putting out misleading statements does not help the situation the campaign is in right now. Period. I felt the statement implied the County Elections Commission was not naturally politically aligned with Walker via majority Party affiliation, in contrast to the State Elections Board, which was naturally aligned with Doyle via majority Party affiliation.

By the way, Walker himself was more careful with semantics on his blog regarding that issue. He wrote on his blog: "Earlier this year, all of the members of the Milwaukee County Election Commission (Republicans and Democrat) voted to take no action on the matter."

But note the phrase voted to take no action on the matter. According to the Elections Board memo on the matter (you can find it linked on my earlier posting if you want to read it), other issues were the focus of that meeting. The memo states that no formal complaint or adversarial proceeding came up at the meeting over the source identification issue (political disclaimer issue) and no finding was made, although the issue was mentioned. I am trying to reach the Walker campaign for their explanation on the blog and in the campaign statement of how their descripton of the supposed Elections Commission vote squares with the Elections Board memo and will repost if I hear.

Is Doyle a Dino?

Is Gov. Doyle a DINO? (Democrat in Name Only)

Or does he just play one on TV?

Yes, those are rhetorical questions. When a politician so consistently tries to convince the public he's the best candidate for the job by coopting the other side's ideas (or just enough of them to fool the voters), you have to wonder what he stands for himself. And it has to be an acknowledgement that he knows he's been on the wrong side of the People. It's a crafty strategy, but a risky one. There are already the beginnings of rumors of a challenge against Doyle on the Left. I've heard them a couple times now. For the record, I don't believe them; the governor has too much campaign cash, the power of incumbency, the support of WEAC etc...

But when their guy plays a DINO on TV, that has to make some Democratic purists squirm.

The Piranha Effect: Putting the Recent Walker Campaign Flap Into Perspective

First, let’s get one thing out of the way: Scott Walker is not having a great summer. A few more months of this and it’s going to be Walker’s very own “annus horibilis.” The State Elections Board voted Wednesday to lodge a $5,000 penalty against Walker's campaign after the campaign admitted making an error by not including a disclaimer on some automated phone calls the campaign made to Milwaukee County residents before a county budget vote. At the time, Walker was not a declared gubernatorial candidate. This is a somewhat self-inflicted wound.

It wouldn’t be that big of a deal were it not for the piranha effect: Walker’s been losing a bit of flesh here, a bit of flesh there, for several months now, some of it self-inflicted, some of it because he's perceived as a major threat by the opposition (Doyle), some of it because he has determined critics who are holdovers from the pension scandal, some of it because he's in the most concentrated media market in the State, and some of it falling somewhere in between. Don't look for Walker to ever get defended by the State's editorial boards either.

Now, let’s put Wednesday's development into perspective. Lack of a political disclaimer is one of the more common – and minor - types of campaign violations, although mostly it’s seen with more inexperienced candidates. I predict that a review of past State Elections Board actions against those who lacked political disclaimers will show that few, if any, received such a large penalty for what is a relatively minor campaign violation (that will be a far more appropriate comparison than the comparison to Jon Wilcox's campaign violations in the newspaper, which were of a far more serious nature). As a better comparison, for example, in 2000, telephone calls featuring Green Bay Packers President Bob Harlan encouraged people to vote for a sales tax to help renovate Lambeau Field. The calls didn't include the full political disclaimer. An Elections Board lawyer told the Journal Sentinel he "doubted any enforcement action would be taken unless a formal complaint was filed." I could find no evidence on the Board's site that a complaint was ever filed or that enforcement action was ever taken; it would be interesting for a reporter to follow that up to determine for sure (it's too late in the day for me to call and find out right now). But most failures to use a political disclaimer are handled on the local level and occur in local races (like alderman and school board) and do not result in such a hefty penalty either because they are considered relatively minor.

Granted, there was a large volume of calls going out in the Walker situation (although that's also true with the Harlan calls) but it's not clear how many Walker calls lacked the disclaimer, an omission caught very early on, and the error occurred as a single mistake. A Republican board member pointed out that a Democratic state Senator was fined only $500 for a campaign violation that involved violating loan limits on his campaign, certainly as serious a violation.

The Walker campaign made the 40,000 telephone calls over two days in November. But the campaign caught the error itself, at 11 a.m. on the first day, and stopped the calls, according to Elections Board documents. The campaign then added the disclaimer to the rest of the calls and reported the error itself to the state and county election authorities, who took no action against the campaign. The State's recent action came months later when two county supervisors who are persistent Walker critics lodged a formal complaint with help from a Democratic-aligned elections attorney after Walker was a declared gubernatorial candidate.

Walker’s campaign claims the State Elections Board’s action is political. So, is there any truth to that claim?

You decide on the evidence:

• The Milwaukee County Election Commission (two Republicans, one Democrat) never took action on the matter (and appears not to have even really reviewed it), even though Walker referred the matter to the Commission after receiving a letter of complaint from supervisors. If the Commission thought it was a big deal, it likely would have done something, although granted it had a political tilt in Walker's favor.
• The State Elections Board voted against Walker on a party-line vote. Four Democratic board appointees and a Supreme Court appointee voted against Walker. Two Republican board appointees and the Libertarian member sided with Walker. (Walker's campaign argued the State Board didn't even have jurisdiction because he was only a County candidate at the time; the Board's attorney said it did because he's maintained a State campaign registration as a holdover from his days as a State Assembly candidate - even though he didn't have to do so).
• The complainants were two of the most longstanding and persistent Walker critics on the County Board: Supervisors John Weishan Jr. and Gerry Broderick, who have repeatedly teamed up to levy complaints against Walker. They were, for example, front and center over criticism about his Harley Ride and far too many other issues to name here.
• Weishan is the brother of former County Board Chairwoman Karen Ordinans, who was ousted in the pension scandal that swept Walker into office, so there has never been any love lost. And Weishan and Walker have a history over automated phone calls too. According to the Journal Sentinel, Walker recorded an automated phone message during Weishan’s re-election to the County Board “that reminded residents of the south suburban district that Weishan's sister, Karen Ordinans, was recalled for supporting the pension deal in 2000 - and that Weishan approved the deal, too.” As for Broderick, the newspaper article at the time he won election stated, "But the county government reform movement stalled a bit on Milwaukee's east side, where Gerry Broderick outpolled Mark Goff in a runoff to replace recalled supervisor Penny Podell. With slightly more than 52% of the vote, Broderick became the first candidate in the recall elections to win with a campaign platform that countered the reform movement's calls for a smaller county board and less county government." In other words, his vision for the County conflicted with Walker's from the start.
• Attorney Michael Maistelman represented Weishan and Broderick and filed the complaint about the recent phone calls with the State Elections Board. Read more details on the exact complaint here. But a press release posted on the Wisbusiness site in May 2005 stated of Maistelman: “Maistelman has gained a reputation as a tenacious advocate for Democratic candidates and organizations in election and campaign finance matters in Wisconsin. His clients have included Governor Jim Doyle, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, South Milwaukee Mayor Dave Kieck, America Coming Together, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.”

Update: I called the State Elections Board today to see if there was ever action or a complaint on the Harlan matter but as of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Exec Director Kevin Kennedy has yet to respond to my open records request. I'll let you know if/when he does. I also want to know if the Board has the authority to take action if there is no complaint filed. We'll see if he responds. Also, I believe that Walker's camp is compounding this otherwise relatively minor issue by making some misleading statements about it. You can read more by going to my home page and by reading the posting "bipartisan?".

Update 2: Still no return call from Kevin Kennedy by 11 a.m. Friday. See my new posting on my home page on the State Elections Board's protocol in many political disclosure cases...turns out they often let a campaign correct the situation and then that's the end of it.

Where are all the Republican-focused humor shows?

No, that slug is not a joke (slug is newsroom shorthand for story name). It's just something I thought about when I read the results of a fascinating new research study by UWM Prof Paul Brewer and his students. Their study analyzed the Daily Show, which is where a lot of young people seem to look for their "news" today (in addition to, previous research has found, Jay Leno and other late night network talk shows).

In this study, the research found that President George W. Bush was the most frequent joke target on the show. Anyone who's seen the Daily Show knows Iraq war "coverage" is dubbed Mess-o-potamia. Brewer reports that this mocking coverage of Iraq led the show's international coverage.

I was trying to think of a Republican-based humor show. The Left has Bill Maher, and Jon Stewart, (and for more highbrow humor, Garrison Keillor). The Right has talk show hosts generally characterized as angry. A bit of humor might help the Right appeal to the younger generations more. The Right is losing the Humor War. The Right needs a national humorist (If I'm forgetting someone, let me know...)

Update: A reader mentions Dennis Miller.

All in the Family

The county exec race may feature two of the biggest names in Waukesha politics: Vrakas and Finley. The only thing that would have kept it more "in the family" is if Susan Dreyfus was running (she's not). That's presuming that former County Exec Dan Finley's wife, Jenifer, runs. At last word, Jenifer is still actively considering it and consulting with top advisors. Expect an announcement soon. State Legislator Dan Vrakas is a declared candidate (along with County Board Chairman Jim Dwyer).

A Vrakas-Finley contest would be, in part, a contest of famous Waukesha political names. There's been a lot more focus on Jenifer Finley's family ties. But Dan Vrakas has a political name connection that works to his political advantage too, namely, the legacy of his father, Paul. Paul Vrakas was an icon in City of Waukesha politics and he's a very dignified, charming, and well-respected man. His political career spanned five decades in Waukesha. Highlights:

• He was first a City of Waukesha alderman, elected in 1960.
• He was elected City of Waukesha mayor, serving 1970-1978 and 1986-1994.
• He was elected a Waukesha County supervisor, a post he held from 1994-2001.
• He ran a prominent downtown City of Waukesha restaurant, later taken over by Dan.

The City of Waukesha holds around 1/6 of the county's population base, meaning it's strategically important. Dan Vrakas' name is also known in his own base, where he's been a legislator in the Delafield-Hartland area.

And of course the Finley name is one of the most known political names in Waukesha County politics, spanning the entire geography of the County.

I point this all out simply because it's interesting and because I think the Vrakas family ties are being overlooked in the focus on Jenifer Finley's family ties. But I would also say this: Both Jenifer Finley and Dan Vrakas have carved out their own identifies and accomplishments. I think voters should strip away their family ties and look at what they've done personally because they've both become known in their own right for their civic endeavors (see my earlier posting on Jenifer's resume) and on what they intend to do for the County if elected. Another interesting political aside, Jenifer's father was a municipal judge in St. Francis for years.

I know something of family ties. One of the reasons I retain the McBride name professionally is that it's honoring a family legacy in journalism. The first time the McBride name appeared in the old Milwaukee Journal was 1928, my grandfather was a Milwaukee Journal reporter for 42 years and a columnist for the old Green Sheet (his column was called, fittingly, "All in the Family", before the TV show), and my grandmother was a pioneering female Milwaukee Sentinel political reporter (although they marginalized her to covering the First Ladies). My father wrote for the Wisconsin State Journal.

When I started at the then Milwaukee Journal, an editor told me there was a presumption of talent because of my family history but I would have to carve my own path. I would say there is also a presumption of talent attached to the Vrakas and Finley names. The presumption seems to apply more to blood lineage; I think that people are not used yet to the modern political wife that Jenifer Finley represents, a woman who adores her husband but who is also accomplished in her own right. But the presumption of talent is only that; a presumption. People should look beyond those presumptions and take a look at what Jenifer Finley and Dan Vrakas have done themselves; they've both got long track records of accomplishments and in the end they both deserve to be judged on their own merits (if Jenifer runs).

Worth reading

There's a lot worth reading in this month's Milwaukee mag:

• A heartwrenchingly emotional and poignant profile on Lynise Weeks in her final days;
• A very interesting and insightful Pressroom Confidential take by Peter Robertson on Kathy Skiba's "Jackie Collins'-esque" book on being a Journal Sentinel military embed (her descriptions on the hunky soldiers are especially bizarre);
• The slew of corrections resulting from Bruce Murphy's recent expose on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel;
• And a great column by Bruce on E. Michael McCann's pension grab and other problems.

The latter made me wonder why we haven't been hearing about McCann's 25% pension enhancement from the rest of the media (especially in light of his pretty weak reasoning; he blamed taking the dough on his wife) . Unless I blinked and missed it.

Back during the height of the pension scandal, I had called McCann to press him on whether he was going to take the lump sum because I noticed he was pretty much escaping scrutiny, even though he stood to get a lot. He would not return my call even though I said the reason I was calling was that I wanted to know whether he intended to take the lump sum. I called for days. It became clear he was dodging the call because he would generally call back people promptly. Finally, I called his secretary and said that if he didn't call back by 4:30 p.m. that day I would report that he was refusing to say whether he'd give up the backdrop. I remember a perception in the newsroom at the time that McCann was too good of a guy to do a pension grab anyway; there wasn't a lot of interest as a result of the goodwill he enjoyed. Well, he called back before 4:30 p.m. and said he would forgo the backdrop. The whole thing seemed a bit odd then. I'm glad Bruce followed up on it. Very good reporting on his part.

The World According to John Nichols

Madison Capital Times columnist John Nichols continues the Liberal argument (or rather the Liberal dodge to get media attention off Gov. Doyle's actions in the needle caper) that Assembly Speaker John Gard is playing politics because Doyle, or one of his minions, decided to send used hypodermic needles to Gard's office. Come again? Doyle and his minions send needles to Gard to make a political point at the behest of a woman making a political point and Gard is the one playing politics?

Bashing Gard over this one proves that some bashers will bash him over anything. In other words, it's not about needles, it's about Gard and the fact that his politics are right of center. And it's about the fact that Doyle and his staff blundered over the needle issue and the governor is letting his staff take the fall and his supporters want to obscure those facts.

Some of the logic according to Nichols:

Nichols: Some have suggested that Elizabeth Kastner should apologize for her protest.

-Um, no, it's Doyle, not Kastner, who's been urged to apologize by at least two State newspapers.

Nichols: Only one apology is due, and that is the one that will never be heard - the apology from John Gard to Elizabeth Kastner, in particular, and to the people of Wisconsin, in general, for taking state politics to a new low.

-Who was the one who sent a bag of used needles over to a political opponent's office again? Oh, that's right. It was DOYLE'S office (or Doyle himself, if you believe the initial statement from his spokesman).

Nichols: There is no question that Gard is a troubled man who has become so obsessed with his own career that he is willing to sacrifice the health and safety of Wisconsinites in his desperate clawing for political advancement.

-Some Liberals try to argue that Conservatives are never operating on principle but are always operating for political gain. Reasonable people can disagree on stem cells and namecalling the other side is... playing politics. And, as for the health and safety issue, who was it again who sent used hypodermic needles to the office of a top political opponent? Oh that's right; it wasn't Gard.

Nichols: In what may well be the creepiest attempt at political spin ever, the speaker tried to claim that this simple protest put legislative staff and cleaning crews at risk. He even called in the Capitol Police, forcing officers to take time away from legitimate public safety duties to dispose of the needles for Gard - who was determined to get rid of the evidence of the hardships his politicizing of the stem cell issue has caused.

-Let's see. A woman affiliated with the Democratic Party tries to make a political point by getting the governor's office to send needles to the office of a top political opponent. That political opponent, unsure of what the needles are or why someone would send used needles to his office in this day-and-age, calls the police to dispose of them but, when the officer mentions it's possible he could ticket the woman for disorderly conduct, the political opponent refuses and says he doesn't want the woman arrested. And HE'S the one playing politics?

Home Schooling, Part Two

I was curious to learn more about the Home Schooling numbers that formed the basis for the front-page Journal Sentinel article the other day that argued, as the headline put it, "Home Schooling Enrollment Falters".

So I put in an open records request to the State Department of Public Instruction for the numbers. The Journal Sentinel article reported that Home Schooling was on the decline the past two years in Wisconsin by 2.6% (see previous posting on the Virtual Schooling issue).

But in 2003-04 (one of the years considered by the paper in its calculation), the number of public and private students also declined. That is, the OVERALL number of Wisconsin students declined. The real number of interest, it would thus follow, is the percent that home schooling students make up of the whole. In other words, pure demographic changes - a smaller number of students overall - may account for part of the change.

From 2002-2003 to 2003-2004, the number of students overall in Wisconsin declined by 6,221 students. Private schools lost the biggest percentage, 3.34%, public schools lost 0.14% (and that was even WITH the virtual school students being counted in their column), and home based schools declined 1.14%.

The percent that home school students made up of the overall pool of students in Wisconsin declined from 2.04% to 2.02% from 2002-2003 to 2003-2004, a miniscule .02%, hardly justifying a front-page story declaring that home schooling was faltering (in fairness to the reporter, reporters do not write or see headlines and the headline seemed a bit more overstated than the story itself).

Now, I wanted to know the percentage that home school students made up of the overall whole in 2004-2005, since that was the second year the newspaper used to come to its conclusion. But those numbers are not yet publicly available. The number of private school students, however, continued to decline in 2004-2005, according to DPI (Somehow I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a story that shouts, Private and Public School Enrollment Falters.) Granted, there were other years where overall school population declined, but home schooling did not, so it would take a trained statistician to nail down the real trend lines.

From DPI's Merry Larsen: In 2004-05, total enrollment in private schools was 136,792. Due to the implementation of the Individual Student Enrollment System, public school enrollment for 2004-05 is not yet available. According to the Department's Library and Statistical Information team staff, this data is expected to be available in September or October, 2005.

Also, (and the story touched on this), the real story is the absolute explosion of homeschooling in Wisconsin from fewer than 1,000 just over 20 years ago to more than 20,000 students today. Click on "numbers" above to see.

I also noticed something interesting. The DPI spreadsheet states that DPI changed the way that it counts public school enrollment in 2000-01 (see the spreadsheet above by clicking on numbers) by adding new categories into it (that increased enrollment numbers; for example inmates were now counted). This interested me because public versus private school enrollment figures are caught up in the debate over school choice, school funding and other issues. So I asked Larsen why the DPI made the change (it would seem to follow that, without the change, the homeschooling explosion would appear even greater). She referred me to a Web site that outlined the changes but did not provide the reason:

CHANGES IN THE ENROLLMENT DATA COLLECTION

The collection of public school enrollment data has changed over the past several years. In 1995-96, the Department was collecting public enrollment data from public schools and DPI (2 state schools).

Beginning in 1998-99, DPI added the two County Children with Disabilities Education Boards (Brown and Walworth).

In 1999-2000, DPI added the "(2r)" charter schools in Milwaukee.

In 2000-01, DPI added enrollment counts from the Department of Health and Family Services and the Department of Corrections.

In 2001-02, multi-district charter schools were assigned a unique 9000's series school number. The school is displayed in each district that participates.

During the 2003-04, school year Special Education Birth through age 2 (B2), Special Education for ages 3 (E3), Special Education for ages 4 (E4), Special Education for ages 5 (E5); Title I preschool (C1), and Head Start (HD) were collapsed into one reporting code, Pre-kindergarten (PK).

Locale code designations are included on the report starting in 2003-04.

More on statistics....

Charlie Sykes made an excellent point today on the front-page Journal Sentinel story that reported that the # of homeschooling students has dropped dramatically in Wisconsin. "Home Schooling Enrollment falters" read the headline. As he noted, the story points out that this is partly because the number of students in virtual schools is up and those students are counted as public school students. But since those students are, in a sense, still being educated at home, if you add them to the number of students in traditional homeschooling, where's the big drop? You could argue that the number of students being educated at home is up. The headline might more accurately have read: Virtual Schools Take Off or Number of Students in Virtual Schooling Grows.... or More Students Being Educated in the Home

Here are the numbers from the story: 1,500-2,000 Wisconsin students in virtual schools

20,741 students homeschooled in 2004-05, up from 966 in 1984.

The 20,741 is a 2.6% drop from 2002.

But the article doesn't say what the numbers were in 2003. I wonder if that's because 2004-2005 went up from 2003?

Needle-gate

Let me get this straight: So Gov. Jim Doyle's staff member delivers a bag of used hypodermic needles to John Gard's office and the Green Bay Press Gazette derides BOTH Doyle and Gard for playing politics? What was Gard supposed to do? Thank the governor for the needles? Somehow I think if Gard had sent used hypodermic needles to Doyle's office, the newspaper would only be criticizing Gard.

Was Judith Miller an Information "Carrier?"

A column in Editor and Publisher raises some tough questions about jailed New York Times' reporter Judith Miller.

And has anyone else noticed the lack of public outrage about Miller's continued jailing? It shows the widening disconnect between how the media perceive themselves and how the public perceives the media. I just don't think the public believes in the image of the "noble reporter watchdog" anymore and I think that's a really bad thing. Right now I'm reading Woodward's The Secret Man. We are a long ways from those days now.

It's not potatoe, it's potato

Noticed that the word "governor" is repeatedly misspelled as "govenor" in Justice Pat Crooks' campaign documents on wispolitics....

An applauder or a plotter?

The Fond du Lac Reporter needs a PR lesson just like any politician (see earlier Sheriff Clarke posting). When you are wrong, admit it. Show some humility and the public is very forgiving. Keep showing arrogance or trying to defend the indefensible in a PR crisis and you keep looking sillier and sillier.

A Fond du Lac newspaper reporter quoted a federal agent as saying that a former Pakistani gas station owner was a 9-11 "plotter," but federal officials say the agent really said he was a 9-11 "applauder." But the newspaper is refusing to admit outright error. See Spivak and Bice column on the topic.

With a bombshell as potentially shocking as a federal official supposedly saying a 9-11 plotter was in Fond du Lac (of all places), the reporter might have followed up with federal officials to get more details before running with the story. Then, the story would have likely unraveled before it hit the press. I tried to look up the original story, the one that Spivak and Bice said was headlined "Suspected terrorist linked to Fond du Lac: Former gas station owner may have been 9/11 plotter." I wanted to see if the reporter tried to talk to anyone to get more information rather than just regurgitating what the reporter thought the official said at the meeting. But, the first story I found on the newspaper's Web Site is one that is now headlined: "Possible terrorist link to Fond du Lac implied." Rather than just fessing up to a mistake, the newspaper just keeps making this incident more comical.

I did find a story with this headline and lead: "Suspected terrorist linked to Fond du Lac."

A Pakistani man who led a marriage scam in Fond du Lac is believed to be one of the plotters of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and an agent for Osama Bin Laden, a senior special agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.

One of the plotters of the 9-11 terrorist attacks! An agent of bin Laden! Pretty dramatic claim. So dramatic, in fact, that's it's hard to believe the newspaper didn't require more reporting to flesh out the claim before rushing to print based on an agent's offhand comments at a City Council meeting.

If you substitute the word "plotter" for applauder in the agent's quote, it doesn't even really make sense.

Here's what the agent says he said, according to Spivak & Bice: "Our investigation has shown that Faryad has strong anti-American sentiments. He was a strong applauder of the 9-11 attacks. He was a applauder of Osama bin Laden, and he did not have our best interests (at heart)."

Now let's substitute the word "plotter" for "applauder" and you will see how that wouldn't even make sense:

"Our investigation has shown that Faryad has strong anti-American sentiments. He was a strong plotter of the 9-11 attacks. He was a plotter of Osama bin Laden, and he did not have our best interests (at heart)."

County Exec Heats Up

There's a lot I can't say but suffice it to say that Monday morning is going to be the day the Waukesha County Exec race starts really heating up and taking off.

Letter

Periodically I get feedback from readers. Occasionally, I'll post it as sort of a "letter to the editor." That doesn't mean I agree with the letter writer. People can judge the writer's arguments for themselves. Here's one from a Wisconsin reporter who prefers to remain anonymous:

Jessica:

You’ve got quite a few folks here addicted to your blog.

That said, I wanted to point out that the ideologically-loaded rhetoric on Supreme Court nominees flows both ways. The Right is constantly railing against “activist judges,” a term intended to single out judges with an agenda that supersedes upholding the Constitution. Not once have I heard the term used to describe a conservative judge. I wonder if the message is that all conservative judges are fair-minded, while so-called moderate or liberal judges are not?

The other thing that bugs me is the tired cliché about the New York Times being a “Liberal” paper. To make this argument, conservatives have to overlook these facts: 1) The New York Times broke the Whitewater story 2) Howell Raines’ editorial page was harder on Clinton than any other in the nation, with the exception of The Wall Street Journal 3) The New York Times prominently published the now-discredited Swift Boat accusations against Kerry.

Given this, I wonder why so much media criticism takes the position that conservatives have been victims of the press?

Another reader responds to this reader:

This writer cites 4 items going back 14 years, now that's proof of a real trend.

A Good Book

I wanted to send my former TA David Wise a care package in Iraq but he said most of his daily needs are met. What he does need, he said, is a "good book." It would be great if more than one person out there in the blogosphere sent David a "good book" and a note of thanks for his service. His address:

A Co. 983rd EN BN

SSG Wise, David

OIF III, Camp Taqaddum

APO AE 09381

Interesting thought

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

-Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914).

Not always true... more true with some than others.

Read This

David Wise was my TA in Media Writing at UWM, which is a big undergrad class. Very talented guy. Then, he got sent to Iraq mid-semester last fall (he was actually in Iraq by January 2005). He's still there. David writes for wispolitics, so he's turned his numerous emails home into a wispolitics-sponsored blog called Wisconsin At War. While we all sit here pontificating about the War, and while Jane Fonda hums along in a van powered by vegetable oil and takes political potshots, David is risking his life every minute, every hour, every day.

Read it. He's good (he's a writer as much as a soldier after all). It really brings things home. This is what's happening behind the headlines (which tend to focus on milestone events and miss the real grit and essence of daily life.)

County Exec

I think the Waukesha Co. Exec race is going to boil down to three main people: (possibly) Jenifer Finley, Dan Vrakas, and Jim Dwyer (look for at least one 9 a.m. Monday announcement from this trio). I know all three of them fairly well and I like all of them (I know Jenifer Finley best). Paul Kanter (a federal prosecutor and Delafield Town chairman - great resume, I'm tempted to say it's going to boil down to four and add him in) and Kathy Nickolaus (county clerk) may also be in the mix.

I see Dan Vrakas at the gym a lot; he's a solid legislator and a good guy and he's going to have a lot of Party support. He will be a formidable candidate as a result of that backing.

Jim Dwyer is like everyone's favorite uncle and he's paid his dues bigtime, although some see him as somewhat Liberal, which is not a good selling point in Waukesha County. We've got the Irish connection thing going. He's got 8 kids and they've all got Irish names - Eileen, Maureen, Kathleen, Colleen, Timothy, Kevin and Brian (I'm not kidding). Just a charming person. Old school Irish politico.

Jenifer Finley's talented and dynamic and Jenifer would inject real life into County government. She's got the resume. She'd continue her husband's legacy but with her own fresh twist. Like I said in an earlier posting, she'd sell Waukesha County like Bo Black sold Summerfest (Dwyer is the Smiley). I feel that Jenifer would make a great County Exec. The criticism in some corners over whether her husband's resignation gave her an insider advantage is way off the mark. That's because 1, it presumes she's already been organizing and doing things which give her an edge, which I don't feel is true and 2, it presumes that everyone else doesn't have a fair shot at it. They do. And, 3, if anything, the tie to her husband could be a detriment as much as an asset because it could overshadow her own accomplishments and track record, which are admirable in their own right. People should focus on what Jenifer's done, not on who her husband is, and judge her and the other candidates on their merits and ideas (presuming she runs; last I heard, she was still considering it).

Update: Vrakas announced Monday morning; Nickolaus has taken herself out of the running.

Clarke

Sheriff David Clarke is finally wrestling the PR beast to the ground in the Deputy Michael Schuh matter. There are a few truisms for a politician in crisis:

Know when to cry Uncle. When you have lost the PR game, it's time for a little concession. Those who stubbornly stick to a game they've already lost are only going to further the Media Tsunami. Clarke lost the PR game when he lost Talk Radio. Time to cry Uncle.

• A little humility goes a long way. The public knows you aren't perfect; don't be afraid to acknowledge it. The public, in general, is forgiving. But the public does not forgive arrogance.
• When you're wrong, you're wrong. Stop trying to spin it.
• Then, get out of the headlines for God's sake.

Clarke did Friday what he should have done a couple days before: He gave deputy Schuh a partner and a squad and acknowledged that he could have handled the situation better. Now: Get out of the headlines. Those who are comparing Clarke to Arthur Jones were thrown for a loop because Arthur Jones never backed down to his critics. But Clarke went on Channel 4 for an exclusive interview (a smart PR move; holding a press conference would have only dramatized the event more). The suspenders and glasses were a nice touch. The humility was necessary, to a certain degree, but he correctly stopped short of a Jimmy Swaggart. In otherwords, he struck the perfect tone. As a result, he is getting back Talk Radio - Jeff Wagner was pretty much back in Clarke's camp Saturday, stating that Clarke had made a mistake and now let's move on. Callers for the most part agreed.

Clarke is a raw politician. He is unschooled. But he got the PR thing down Friday - at last. He should have done it earlier; as I said before, taking the bus to the inner city to walk around with Schuh just furthered the story. People didn't get why the guy didn't have a partner and why he had to take a bus. Clarke needed to address those issues. Now he has. The Journal Sentinel "briefed" the story; it's been page 1 for days. That shows it's losing its luster; Clarke's finally put it to bed. That's the PR goal for any politician in crisis: Get out of the headlines.

I speak as someone who was not an instinctive Clarke supporter. When I covered the Milwaukee Police Department, David Clarke was often rude to me. But I can sort of get that - when you are a homicide detective, seeing the bodies, talking to the families, reporters become a nuisance... or worse. When he became sheriff, David Clarke took on a new incarnation. I personally think that, politically, he's good for Milwaukee because he challenges orthodoxy of thought. He increases the diversity of viewpoint in the city. And I think that benefits Milwaukee as a whole. He's also a self-taught politician. Hence, he's bound to have a couple stumbles along the way. But I respect that. Clarke is not someone raised in a political family or groomed for a life in politics. He's the son of a letter carrier. He decided one day that he wanted to be a politician/lead an agency and he set out to do it. He's well-read, and has a thirst for knowledge. Those are the things I respect about him. Like anyone, he has an Achille's heel. He was wrong in the Deputy Schuh matter. The union was right to be upset and I hope this is not a management style that will be revisited. It's good he realizes that he was wrong in this matter.

Update: A reader asks whether Clarke shouldn't have just transferred the deputy back to the Courthouse. I think that would have been a good move. I think the minimum he HAD to do was give the guy a squad and a partner. But I think that giving him a squad and a partner eliminates the safety issue and put the story to bed. I also think that the foot patrols in general are not a bad idea, as long as they are done as part of a comprehensive plan that does not endanger deputies and involves more people and thought.

Crooks' Team

Supreme Court Justice N. Patrick Crooks has put together his campaign team, documents posted on wispolitics reveal. Two former Republican Governors - Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum - are Crooks' honorary campaign co-chairmen (the Tommy connex should ward off any rumored challenge from the Right (although I'm curious to know when Tommy accepted); Crooks was very politically smart to announce his reelection and then mobilize so fast after those rumors started flying around before they could take root). Former Democratic Gov. Pat Lucey is the third honorary co-chairman.

Also, on Crooks' campaign committee list posted on wispolitics.com: Matt Flynn, former state Democratic Party chairman and Wisconsin co-chair of the John Kerry presidential campaign. Attorneys Mark Thomsen and Merrick Domnitz make the list; they have represented families who sued police officers in recent high profile police custody deaths (Justin Fields and Matthew Sheridan, respectively). Also making the list: Prominent Milwaukee civil attorney Bob Habush, former Thompson chief of staff Raymond Taffora (who has represented Scott Jensen in the caucus investigation), Walworth Co. Republican DA Phillip Koss and Sharren Rose, the Green Bay attorney who lost a race to Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson (Crooks had teamed up with Justice William Bablitch to endorse Rose in that race). Others on the committee include a Madison diocesan attorney, an assistant DA from Walworth County, the wife of Bablitch, and various Madison lawyers.

Who is Jenifer Finley?

I asked Jenifer Finley today for a copy of her resume because I thought people might be interested in learning more about her credentials:

• January 2003 to July 2005

  Senior Market Manager, Aurora Health Care, Inc. (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Dodge and Ozaukee Counties, Wisconsin)

• Former Waukesha School Board member

• June 1992 to January 2003

  Executive Director, Up Connection Pregnancy and Parenting Support Services, Inc. (Offices in Waukesha and Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

• 1999 to present

  Adjunct Faculty, Carroll College (Waukesha, Wisconsin)

• January 1997- May 1998

  Executive Director, Stillwaters Cancer Support Center, Inc. (Waukesha, Wisconsin)

• March 1995- June 1996

  Manager Center for Breast Care, Waukesha Memorial Hospital, Inc. (Waukesha, Wisconsin)

• June 1990- June 1992

  Program Manager, Addiction Resource Council, Inc. (Waukesha, Wisconsin)

  June 1988- June 1990

  Prevention Education Specialist, Addiction Resource Council (Waukesha, Wisconsin)

• Education:

  - Masters Degree in Administrative Leadership and Adult Education

  University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee 1990

  - Baccalaureate Degree in Education

  University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee 1987

• Professional and Civic Involvement:

  - Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation

  - United Way of Washington County Board of Directors

  - Sally Ride Academy

  - La Casa de Esperanza

  - Salvation Army

  - Kiwanis Early Risers of Waukesha, President

• Committees Chaired:

  - Heart Healthy of Waukesha County Marketing Committee

  - Waukesha County Tobacco Free Coalition

  - Maternal and Child Health Coalition

  - Promise Initiative for Waukesha County

  - Waukesha County Prevention Network

  - Legislative Committee of the Waukesha County Prevention Network

  - Waukesha County AIDS Consortium

  - Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse CESA 1 Partnership

• Awards:

  - Aurora Employee Excellence Award in 2003

  - Nominated two times for YWCA Women of Distinction

  - Outstanding Young American

More Needle Doublespeak

Gov. Doyle might want to get his story on the needle caper straight because it's getting muddier by the second. I posted before that his spokesperson has told two stories to the media about whether the governor knew the used hypodermic needles were going to be delivered to the office of Assembly Speaker John Gard.

Today Comes More Doyle doublespeak:

From today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story: "Obviously, in retrospect . . . we should have probably never taken the needles to begin with, but this sort of happens, somebody comes up and hands it to a young staff member I have," Doyle said.

Doyle said Kastner, a member of the Democratic Party, told him after a July 14 Door County event that she had given the needles to his staff and talked to him about the importance of stem cell research.

"I sort of went on about my business and went about my day and the next couple of days," said Doyle, adding that he did not learn the material had been delivered until this week, when a story appeared in the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Also, On WTAQ (GB’s news talk station) this morning Doyle said “the young staffer should have checked with security before accepting the needles.”

But a July 15 story in the Green Bay Press Gazette (reported before the needle caper started getting public criticism) reads:

"During a stop in Baileys Harbor, Kastner handed the governor a package with 1,400 used syringes that her diabetic daughter, Isabel, used for insulin shots. She asked Doyle to pass the package to Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo, a supporter of the ban."

This doubletalk comes on top of the shifting stories about whether Doyle approved of the needle delivery to Gard's office. The Journal Sentinel story today further reports (as unattributed fact) that: "Susan Goodwin, Doyle's chief of staff, approved the delivery of the bag of needles by Doyle aide Patrick Guarasci."

But, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette: "Doyle’s communication director, Dan Leistikow, acknowledged that the governor approved of the delivery. "

And in an earlier Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Doyle spokesman Dan Leistikow said that he didn't know whether Doyle knew about the delivery, but noted that Doyle's staff was under the impression that the needles were not used."

Having trouble keeping this all straight? You're not alone. But why do the media organizations keep reporting only the version given by the governor or his staff to their own reporters and not pressing him/them on the contradictory statements elsewhere?

Incidentally, I think Gard did the right thing by telling the investigating officer that he didn't want Kastner arrested. She strikes me as a mother who is driven by her pain over her daughter's illness and wants to help her, even if giving used hypodermic needles to the governor is a pretty odd and counterproductive way to go about it. But the actions of the governor (or his staff, depending on which story is being told on which day), are another thing altogether. In today's day and age, giving used hypodermic needles to a top legislative leader (and, worse, without apparently checking the background of the person giving the needles), is at the very least bizarre. Can you imagine if John Gard or Scott Walker had delivered a bag of used hypodermic needles to Doyle's office?

The Wisconsin State Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are both calling on Doyle to apologize.

Finley's successor

So who will run in the special election to replace longtime County Executive Dan Finley? His wife, Jenifer Finley (with an impressive resume and years of County political connections in her own right), has publicly stated that she is considering a run. She would be a formidable candidate.

Here are the other candidates people are mentioning today, by category:

Legislators

Legislators Mark Gundrum (R-New Berlin) and Dan Vrakas (R-Hartland) come up the most. Many people in Waukesha also remember the Vrakas name from Dan's father, Paul Vrakas, who was the longtime Waukesha mayor and a restaurant owner. Ted Kanavas (R-Town of Brookfield) is the other legislator whose name comes up. Dan Vrakas is pictured at left.

Other County Officials

County Board Chairman Jim Dwyer (at left) is considered a lock for a run; he's very networked and respected. County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus is being mentioned. Susan Dreyfus, daughter-in-law of former Gov. Lee Dreyfus, used to be Dan Finley's Chief of Staff with the County, and is being mentioned. However, she now has a very good job that I am not sure she would want to leave. She's Chief Operating Officer for the Alliance of Children and Families and was previously an Administrator with the state Division of Children and Family Services. County Board Supervisor Ken Herro is a possibility. Herro is co-owner of a real estate business who considered running for higher office (Steve Foti's seat) before.

Mayors

I hear Brookfield Mayor Jeff Speaker is out. The other mayors mentioned are former New Berlin Mayor Ted Wysocki (at left) and Oconomowoc Mayor Maury Sullivan.

Wild Cards

Former Lieutenant Governor Margaret Farrow is being mentioned, and she's obviously got a long resume, although her recent service on the museum's much-criticized Board of Directors might come up. More recently, I'm hearing mention of her son as a possible candidate.

Update: People now are already publicly declaring their contentions. First out of the gate: Kanavas tells wispolitics Friday he's out and Gundrum tells the JS he's out in a Saturday story. Dwyer says he's in. Saturday's Journal Sentinel story has the names I gave you here Friday.

Waukesha's Own Mary Bono or Elizabeth Dole?

Fascinating revelations out of the Finley camp. First, the surprise announcement that longtime Waukesha County Executive Dan Finley is leaving to run the financially flailing Milwaukee Public Museum. Then, the double whammy: His wife, Jenifer, is floating a run for county exec.

Both Finleys are personal friends of ours. In fact, I told her a couple months ago that she'd make a natural politician. I think the world of both of them. They've also been really helpful on Paul's campaign.

Dan was ready for this move for awhile. He'd pretty much done what he could do in Waukesha County, and he leaves at a high point and on his own terms, which is always a good thing to do. He probably could have been County Exec for life, but he's young (47 and been in office already 14 years), bright and ambitious and I think he needed a new intellectual challenge. He would have made a great governor but Scott Walker's close geographic proximity to Dan's turf and Walker's emergence as the "Republican County Executive Flavor-of-the Day" because of his dramatic political win in historically Democratic Milwaukee County sealed Dan's gubernatorial fate. There was no way two Republican County Execs from SE Wisconsin could run. And Mark Green and Scott Walker are so young that if either one wins the governor's seat, they'll be around forever. Dan flirted with lieutenant governor but that job just didn't offer enough - who wants to be second banana when you're already a CEO? He was always mentioned for Sensenbrenner's seat if Sensenbrenner hung up his hat, but I could see Sensenbrenner going the Strom Thurmond route.

Dan's a great choice for the Museum because he brings immediate credibility and name ID, proven management experience, numerous fundraising connections (he's always been fundraising even when he had no opposition, holding an annual St. Patrick's Day fundraising party; in fact, he just held an event), media savvy, a unique blend of business and political accomplishments, and a track record of fiscal responsibility. In otherwords, the ideal choice. Plus, he has never been a polarizing politician, proving he can work on both sides of the aisle. And, unlike Michael Stafford, Dan's rooted in this area (he's from West Allis) and he has a lot of local credibility and contacts to use to the museum's benefit, broadening its fundraising reach outside of Milwaukee County.

It's probably the end of his political future (unless he turns the museum around - and knowing Dan, he will - and comes up smelling roses; then, who knows). I think this surprised a lot of people but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

As for Jenifer, there is precedent galore for a wife to move into her husband's political post on the federal level. Think Jean Carnahan; think Mary Bono. Even Teresa Heinz Kerry was recruited to run for her first husband's Senate seat, but declined. Louisiana Rep. Hale Boggs' wife stepped in for him when he died in a plane crash. The difference is that in all of those cases, the husband had died! The wife is a natural candidate because she brings with her the goodwill and trust earned by the husband and instant name ID right out of the box. Of course, in those cases, the deaths added a sentimental edge. But people in Waukesha County trusted Dan Finley's management. That positive feeling may transfer over to his wife.

The name ID will be a big advantange for Jenifer. Because it's an unusual move on the local level for a wife to move into her husband's position, she will likely have to fend off some questions. People are harder on women in these equations; there are cases all over the place of men succeeding their fathers (although, granted, not usually without a few years in between). George W. Bush comes to mind. Can't think of any husbands succeeding their wives, though, (although times are changing so someday maybe we will see that) so the father-son is the closest analogy in a gender reversal sense. Women married to powerful men often have their own identities nowadays. They can be both traditional AND independent, at once.

But before people judge Jenifer based on who she's married to, they should take a fair look at her own resume. I've seen it and it's impressive. She's definitely qualified. Jenifer is a lot more than just a political wife (like Maria Shriver, but not the same political affiliation), although she's also a good political wife (I've seen her work a room). She's run for election before and won - to the Waukesha School Board. She ran a community group in Waukesha for years (Up Connection, which helps teen moms and works to prevent teen pregnancy) and, as a result of that, she was politically networked even before she met Dan. She was co-chair of a public health-related coalition in Waukesha County, among other endeavors. People in Waukesha County knew her first through her own accomplishments, before they knew her as being married to Dan. For example, Paul has served on various boards with her and he did it because of who she was in her own right (and because of her powers of persuasion) not only because of who she married. Dan and Jenifer are a power couple. She doesn't shine only through the reflected light of HIS accomplishments.

She has a master's degree. She's got management and marketing experience from Aurora, where she most recently worked. Thus, and this is key, she's got the management experience. She's smart. And she's charismatic and good looking (hence, my Mary Bono analogy - see picture at right; they even sort of look alike). She's also from a political family (her dad was a judge, I believe).

Example of what I'm talking about (From the Rogers Memorial Hospital Web Site):

WILLIAM COPE MOYERS LECTURE A BIG SUCCESS

Jenifer Finley, representing the Waukesha County Council on AODA, pins a carnation on David Franczyk, Moyers event chair. This foundation sponsored event featured Moyers speaking on Addiction in the Workplace. Over 280 business executives, non-profit leaders and elected officials joined us over lunch at the Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee.

On second thought, Jenifer's probably more Elizabeth Dole than Mary Bono, because she's got a proven track record of accomplishment all her own and she's not frivolous like Bono was before she became a Senator. Maybe Elizabeth Dole with a little Bo Black tossed in (Elizabeth Dole is a lot more stuffy than Jenifer and a lot older). Jenifer's got the sort of pizzazz that Bo Black had and could inject real life into County government. She'd sell Waukesha like Bo sold Summerfest.

The other edge that she automatically has is that entering the race might deter some other people from running because they are Finley allies. And most people in Waukesha County are Finley allies.

Semantics

This reminded me of blogger Dennis York's observation on the Time Magazine Supreme Court diagram, which defined only the Conservatives on the Court as staunch. A Conservative media tracking group points out the difference in descriptive headlines in the New York Times:

While other media outlets, perhaps daunted by John Roberts' resume, have temporarily abandoned the Supreme Court battlefield, the Times keeps the activist fires burning with a front-page story from David Rosenbaum, "An Advocate for the Right," based on memorandums dating back to Roberts' early-1980s work as a Justice Department lawyer.

Contrast that ideologically loaded headline to this one from June 27, 1993 (which seems even sillier in retrospect) about Bill Clinton's nomination of ultra-liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "Balanced Jurist at Home in the Middle."

Lynise Weeks

I'm really sorry to hear that Lynise Weeks passed away. She put up a valiant struggle. I met her several times and she was a nice, nice person and just a real class act. Why do things like this happen to the best people sometimes? RIP.

Woman Who Gave Needles to Doyle Had Open Criminal Case

The next time Gov. Doyle's office agrees to be the go between in delivering a bag of used hypodermic needles to a top legislative leader from the opposing political party, they might want to check the background of the woman asking them to do so.

I ran a quick search of the Door County woman who asked Doyle to give the needles to Assembly Speaker John Gard to send him a message about stem cell research - a bizarre, and potentially dangerous, political stunt if there ever was one.

Turns out that Elizabeth Kastner has a pending criminal misdemeanor case in Door County. The criminal complaint for alleged issuance of less than $2,500 in worthless checks was filed July 15 - just four days before Doyle's aide delivered the needles to Gard's office. (Note: In addition to the name, I compared Kastner's birth date and address on the police report to the criminal case and they all matched.)

Also, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette: "Doyle’s communication director, Dan Leistikow, acknowledged that the governor approved of the delivery. "

But in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Doyle spokesman Dan Leistikow said that he didn't know whether Doyle knew about the delivery, but noted that Doyle's staff was under the impression that the needles were not used."

Which is it?

Update: Xoff asks what potential charge the woman could have faced anyway and says the investigating officer neglected to say. In the police report, the investigating officer writes that he could have issued Kastner a ticket for disorderly conduct. The officer asked Gard if he wanted charges of disorderly conduct brought against the woman but Gard said no, according to the police report. Although the officer decided not to arrest her, Kastner said she wanted to be arrested to get more media attention, the report says. Also, in the police report, Gard's team raised a good question:

Why did the governor's security team let a woman give used hypodermic needles to DOYLE anyway??

A State patrol sergeant had apparently observed the needle bag at the podium where the governor had been speaking but didn't do anything about it. Bizarre story.

Update: Kastner's charge has since been dismissed per CCAP but was open on CCAP at the time of this original posting and at the time the needles were delivered to Gard's office.

Winner

The other big winner in the PabstCity situation: Citizens for Responsible Government. The Tom Ament pension scandal revolt group keeps proving its muscle.

Correction on the retraction

Update: The JS ran a correction on the Sykes/Miranda story today.

Clarke's Problem

Sheriff Clarke should come to his senses and see that his reasons for assigning Deputy Michael Schuh to the lone foot patrol assignment are not washing in the media or public. This story just keeps growing and the sheriff should back down. For example, it's the top story on the radio news right now. People aren't buying Clarke's arguments. He's even getting bashed on talk radio. Jeff Wagner is really taking Clarke on right now.

It's not that the idea of foot patrols is a bad one; it's that no one had heard of the "plan" for sheriff's department inner city foot patrols until the Schuh situation and Schuh's the only one doing it! Why this one guy at this one time? It doesn't pass the smell test. If Clarke had reassigned a slew of deputies to do this, or if he had unveiled the plan long ago, that would be different.

What's particularly disturbing is that Schuh is in a situation where he's not going to be safe since Milwaukee police usually patrol high crime neighborhoods in pairs. Schuh's alone (when the reporters leave). And he doesn't even have a squad to go to for safety if he feels a bad situation is developing or he's under threat. Plus, standing around in a bus stop in his uniform doesn't seem like a great idea in a high-crime neighborhood. On top of it, the stories said the deputy is a 55 year-old bailiff. Is he prepared/trained for this assignment? It's just a weird, weird story. Let's hope the deputy gets a new assignment before something bad happens to him.

Update: Now Clarke has been taking the bus to the inner city to walk around with Schuh. All that's doing is giving the media another day's story on an issue that is NOT doing anything for Clarke. From a political standpoint (and because it's clearly the right thing to do), the sheriff should reverse course and reassign the deputy.

The Horde of Reporters

Yep, as predicted, Milwaukee County sheriff's deputy Michael Schuh was trailed by a horde of reporters as he walked around one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods on foot patrol after ticking off Sheriff David Clarke in a union newsletter. Today's Journal Sentinel article dubs it an "army of reporters." Hey, at least he was safe. For now.

Crooks on New Federalism?

I've been writing a lot about the State Supreme Court's adoption of the controversial principle of "new federalism" in several recent decisions. As noted in an earlier posting, new federalism is when State Supreme Courts grant greater rights than are required by the US Supreme Court/federal law. Justice N. Patrick Crooks, a Conservative, sided with the Liberal majority on the 4-3 decisions. Crooks' recent decisions have prompted discussion of a challenge from the Right since he's up for re-election.

So what does Justice Crooks think of new federalism? He was pretty clear about it in a concurring opinion he wrote July 19 in a case that expanded Miranda rights for criminal defendants by saying physical evidence can't be used by prosecutors if it's obtained as a direct result of a Miranda violation (contradicting a recent US Supreme Court ruling).

What was the practical ramification of the decision?

Prosecutors can't use a bloody sweatshirt allegedly stained with a murder victim's blood that was in the possession of a defendant.

A US Supreme Court ruling would have allowed it. In fact, the US Court had just vacated the SAME earlier decision of the Wisconsin Court that had banned prosecutors from using the shirt, but the Wisconsin Court then turned around and came to the same decision the US Court had just vacated by couching it instead in the State Constitution.

But Crooks doesn't shy away from new federalism. He wrote in part:

"I write separately to emphasize that the majority opinion serves to reaffirm Wisconsin's position in the 'new federalism' movement."

To back up his point, he cites a Liberal Justice, William Brennan, as encouraging "the emerging pattern of state court decisions interpreting their own constitutions, and declining to follow federal precedent they found unconvincing, even where the state and federal constitutions are similarly or identically phrased." He says that new federalism has become a growing trend, and cites, among other cases, one in Texas where the State Court ruled that a "prolonged checkpoint stop" was illegal under the state Constitution, although not under federal border search law. He also states that new federalism is a concept "embraced by both liberals and conservatives."

It should be pointed out, however, that the Wisconsin Court's new federalism decisons are not generally embraced by conservatives, as they are seen as encroaching on prosecutorial and police powers by expanding the rights of criminal defendants in a greater manner than federal law requires. This police case and another have gotten far less attention than Crooks' controversial decisions in other cases, such as medical malpractice. Also, many Conservative observers see new federalism as an attempt to block the Rehnquist Court from dismantling the Warren Court's liberal activism.

Indeed, Crooks then writes that the most similar case to the Wisconsin Miranda decision is one by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. In that case, Boston police responded to a 911 call of a man who said he was threatened by a person with a gun. Police believed they located the defendant. He surrendered and was handcuffed when he opened his apartment door. Police did a protective sweep of his apartment, Crooks wrote, and the defendant was positively identified. The defendant had not yet been read his rights when he told police where the gun was in his apartment. He was then formally arrested and read his Miranda rights. The Court ruled that the physical evidence should be excluded under the State Constitution, even though the federal rulings did not mandate that.

Crooks concluded: "...In refusing to apply mechanically decisions based on federal law to rights guaranteed by our state constitution, the Court continues to place Wisconsin in good company with the many states that have embraced new federalism."

Louis Butler wrote the majority decision in the Miranda case. He noted that the US Supreme Court had sent the case back to the Wisconsin Court, because a "plurality (Thomas, Rehnquist, Scalia) of the (US) court concluded (in a recent federal case) that the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine does not extend to derivative evidence discovered as a result of a defendant's voluntary statements obtained without Miranda warnings."

So the Wisconsin Court decided to use the State Constitution to come to the same decision that the US Supreme Court had just vacated and disagreed with.

Here were the circumstances of the Wisconsin case, according to the decision: In 1987, a Watertown woman was beaten to death with a bat. The defendant and the woman had been seen together drinking. He was on parole and wasn't supposed to drink, so he was going to be brought in on a parole violation. A detective went to pick up the defendant. He did not read him his Miranda Rights. The detective and the defendant went into a bedroom so the defendant could put on a pair of shoes. While there, the detective asked about the clothes the defendant was wearing the night before and the defendant pointed to clothes on the floor. The detective seized them. Blood was found on a sweatshirt; the victim could not be eliminated as the source. It took 12 years to charge the case; the defendant points to another possible suspect and said the blood came from a bloody nose the victim had that night. But other evidence had also come to light years later: DNA said the blood on the sweatshirt was the victim's blood, a man said the defendant confessed, and the defendant's ex girlfriend said he told her "I'll do to you what I did to her." After being charged, the defendant sought to suppress the bloody sweatshirt because the detective didn't read him the Miranda warnings even though admitting he knew he should have done so.

The new federalism decision means a jury can't consider the sweatshirt - if the case ever gets that far now.

Can Walker Win? Or better put: Can Doyle Win?

Can Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker win the governor's race? Bruce Murphy, ever a thought-provoking and intelligent writer (and a person who I like - we're on talk shows a lot together), has an interesting column on Milwaukee's Magazine's Web Site arguing he pretty much has the answer.

Murphy believes that Walker probably can't win the race for Governor and says "most insiders from both parties" agree. It would be a big task to talk to "most insiders." Bruce makes a lot of interesting supporting arguments. But I don't agree with his underlying conclusion. If I were writing a legal opinion, I would say that I concur in part and dissent in part to his various points.

Both Mark Green and Scott Walker have strong selling points and I wouldn't write either one of them off, especially this early. Far from it. Either one would pose a serious challenge/problem for Doyle. The real question is whether Doyle can win against either strong Republican candidate (more on that in a minute). Green's got the money (if he wins the governor's race, look back to the rule change allowing him to use his federal coffers as the number one most important development in the election), a broad message, great strategists and organization, and a powerful speaking presence on the stump. I've watched Green at Lincoln Day dinners and picnics all over the State now, and he's got a very powerful Statesman-like stump speech that has the ability to really stir the audience, whereas Walker, although also a very good speaker and a very focused politician, can sometimes come across as a bit more wonkish (as does Doyle).

Green's also not in the epicenter of the most concentrated and brutal media market in the State, so he's gotten beaten up less thus far and has less media baggage. Although that media scrutiny plays into Walker's hands in some ways by driving up his name recognition and by detonating any potential landmines early on.

Walker has geography. I agree with Murphy that being from Milwaukee can sometimes not be a great selling point in other areas of the State. At the same time, if a Republican can break 40% of the vote in Milwaukee County, it's a recipe for winning statewide. Democrats drive up huge numbers in Dane and Milwaukee Counties, and Republicans drive up huge numbers in Waukesha. If a Republican can cut into the Democratic base just enough in one of those big counties of Dane or Milwaukee, the theory goes, the Republican can win the State. The last person to break that threshhold statewide was Tommy. Walker has won with far more than that magic 40% in his county executive races. Granted, the county exec races were uniquely tied to the pension scandal. But Walker also has a lot of earned media in SE Wisconsin, as Murphy notes. And don't forget that almost half of the GOP primary vote comes from the 4-county Metro Milwaukee area. And in the general election for governor last time around, 1 in 7 votes came from Milwaukee County.

Murphy argues that Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling shamelessly promote Walker. I've heard the Walker folks would like Sykes to be MORE pro Walker, because he's also given Green decent air time. So I think Sykes likes both candidates. The Belling comment seems more on target (although I wouldn't use the same semantics; Sykes and Belling share similar philosophies with Walker and Green and so it's logical they'd "promote" the candidate(s) they agree with on the issues). But Belling hasn't done much for Green for some reason.

I haven't seen the Dems pounding Green more than Walker recently as Murphy noted; I've observed it's the other way around. Bill Christofferson, a close Doyle compadre and always a Democratic canary in the mine, has been relentlessly hammering Walker for weeks.

Saying Walker had to work hard to win against Doyle stalking horse David Riemer is a bit of a non-starter. The real story is that Walker again beat a Democrat in Democratic Milwaukee County. Any Democrat would have posted decent numbers against a Republican in a County like Milwaukee just by virtue of being a... Democrat. So I don't see the Riemer race as a harbinger of future Walker weakness. If anything, you could say that Riemer (Doyle's former budget director) ably trotted out all of Doyle's arguments against Walker, pre-testing them, and the voters rejected them. And if Murphy is going to argue that Riemer was charismatically challenged, well, it's a bit of a low blow, but you could say the same for Doyle. The same is not true of Green and Walker.

I agree with Murphy that Walker has not had a great summer PR wise. Using campaign money to pay for the Harley Ride upfront, for example, would have been a smart move. But it's really early. Who's going to remember it in 1 1/2 years? I am not sure the Harley Ride played as big in public circles as it did among insiders. Of course, the insiders matter a lot at this point in the game but it's the Republican insiders who matter in the primary. Also, if Walker firmly positions himself as a reformer of the Milwaukee problems he can negate the issues Murphy raises about State perceptions of Milwaukee. That gets harder to do as issues like the museum arise that didn't simply occur under the leadership of the person Walker replaced. But the reform wave he rode into office could make him a different kind of Milwaukee candidate image-wise.

And then there's the more important question: Can Doyle Win? Gov. Doyle has a lot of cash, a well-oiled machine, and he keeps trying to seize the Republican playbook in a half-baked way (which is politically smart but also shows how he's been on the wrong side of the issues and knows it). But Doyle has reason to be worried because of two main reasons: His record and the softness of his support the last time around; he got only 45% of the vote and that was against a weak Republican opponent, although independent Ed Thompson was also in the race. He's also created a lot more lightning rod issues since then. Interestingly, Christofferson has noted recently that some on the Left aren't thrilled with Doyle's budget moves either.

Both Green and Walker are formidable candidates with similar messages that strike a chord with average Wisconsinites. They will paint Doyle as a big spender who's out of touch with taxpayers. They will paint Doyle as out of step on election integrity issues. Both of the Republican candidates are helping each other define Doyle the same way in the public's mind. As Green's press release on Doyle's budget said: "The facts are clear. Under Jim Doyle’s budgets, property taxes are up 11%, tuition is up over 50% and our state’s deficit is now considered one of the worst in the country. And we’re going to start the next budget with a deficit yet again." Walker made similar remarks. As for Walker's record, most voters are happy he's frozen their taxes. From what I've seen of Walker and Green on the stump so far, Republicans can't go wrong with either one. Incidentally, if there was only one Republican candidate, that person would be drawing all the fire, which could play more into the Dems' hands. This way, if the Dems focus on one person, the other is still standing unscathed. Because there's one thing you can take to the bank: The Republican candidates won't turn their fire on each other.

(Disclosure: As noted on the side of this blog, my husband is running as a Republican for AG. My opinions do not represent his opinions. But one thing the campaign has done is given me a front-row seat for months to observe the gubernatorial candidates in action.)

Settlement

So, the Miranda case against Charlie Sykes settled today. Seems like a good resolution to me. Some kid at South Division High School gets a $5,000 scholarship. Miranda got his retraction. And Sykes gets to move on. Seems to me Sykes did everything he could do - he took down the posting, issued a retraction, turned over every rock and then some investigating the protest & the company made a good settlement offer. It would have been unfortunate if this had been blown up into something it wasn't in court.

PabstCity

A big defeat for Mayor Barrett and a victory for the downtown nightclub/restaurant lobby.

Theater of the Absurd

A very good - albeit bizarre - scoop in this morning's Journal Sentinel by Dave Umhoefer (one of their best reporters) about the 55-year-old Milwaukee County Sheriff's Deputy who made negative remarks about Sheriff David Clarke and is now suddenly assigned to patrol high crime neighborhoods... on foot... by himself...without a squad... and he has to get there by taking the bus.

Of course, the guy will be safe for a couple days because he'll probably be trailed by a horde of reporters as he knocks on doors.

The moderate Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Dennis York made this posting before I really revved up my blog and started paying attention to other blogs, but I just noticed it courtesy of John McAdams' recent posting on the Marquette Warrior blog. York made the fascinating observation that in a recent diagram on the US Supreme Court, Time magazine labeled each justice as staunch or moderate (Conservative or Liberal) and ended up labeling all the Conservative justices as staunch and all the Liberal judges as moderate. Very interesting. See the diagram here.

A correction on the story on the retraction?

Charlie Sykes has a good blog roundup of commentary on his case... and makes an interesting point about the whereabouts of Robert Miranda at the time of the protest in question. Read it here.

Here's the Peter Robertson source article on Miranda's whereabouts that ran in Milwaukee Magazine.

In a nutshell: Miranda initially claimed he was not even in Milwaukee at the time of the protest in question, but later admitted to Robertson that he was in Milwaukee at the time (read to the end of the source article - it gets really interesting). But the Journal Sentinel article this morning on Miranda's small claims suit against Sykes (see my earlier posting for more) stated flatly that "Miranda wasn't in Wisconsin at the time of that protest..."

So now Journal Communications is in the very odd position of having to run a correction on a story about its retraction (let's see if they do; I'm sure they will). If you can keep that one straight.

The Worst Place in the Country to Be Black?

An African-American Web Site has named Wisconsin the Worst Place in the Country to be Black. I once pitched, along with another reporter, a major project on Wisconsin's extremely high Black incarceration rate. The Journal Sentinel wouldn't give the green light; I guess the paper had other fish to fry at the time. I still think that would be a worthwhile series.

Odd Omissions

The Journal Sentinel this morning ran a story by Derrick Nunnally about the small claims suit that Spanish Journal Editor Robert Miranda filed against talk show host Charlie Sykes for what both sides acknowledge was an inaccurate blog posting about Miranda. Two interesting things jumped out at me about the story:

• First, the story notes: "Although a court filing from Sykes' attorneys indicated the entry had been on the WTMJ Web site only 'for a few hours,' a reporter in January wrote that the story was still online at an unlinked, but publicly accessible, URL on the WTMJ site."

This "reporter" who found that URL site - who is unnamed by Derrick Nunnally - is Derrick Nunnally! In fact, Miranda's lawyer has said he wants to call Nunnally to testify in the case. Also, WTMJ and the Journal Sentinel are run by the same company, so I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when Journal Communications' lawyers realized a reporter for their own company had contradicted a court filing by attorneys for the same company in the midst of a libel suit.

• The story stated that Sykes' blog posting had alleged Miranda had helped "foment a protest at a 1991 pro-Gulf War event in which several speakers were pelted with small objects." Turns out, Miranda was not at the event and had nothing to do with the protest (Sykes has retracted the comment). It was odd that the story didn't mention that one of the "several speakers" was Mark Belling, and that Sykes was focusing on that protest because of Miranda's later public criticism of Belling's use of an ethnic slur.

This entire episode underscores how careful bloggers need to be, making sure their postings follow the same libel standards they'd use if they were writing in a newsroom. In fact, that's why I don't allow public comments on my blog, unlike other blogs. I want to control the content.

Also, the blog Boots and Sabers makes a really good argument about the chilling effect it would have on blogs if it's held against the blogger in Court if a retracted posting still appears on the Web despite the fact the blogger took down the original posting. It's akin to a newspaper writer printing a retraction/correction in the newspaper but not being able to account for the fact that thousands of newspapers are still lying around the city in people's drawers and on their kitchen tables containing the original story. The newspaper could hardly be expected to round up all the papers; the blogger can hardly be expected to cleanse the entire Web of a retracted posting. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for a blogger to scour the vast reaches of the Web and ensure that a posting does not exist anywhere.

Finally, Sykes acknowledges making a mistake in this case but people are human. Sykes had two sources he relied on, who it turned out were wrong. He took the posting down in several hours. It seems really unfair to mushroom this single incident into an entire indictment of a person's lengthy career. I can also understand why Miranda is upset.

(Disclosure: I am a frequent pundit on Sykes' and Belling's Sunday morning talk shows and Sykes has also had my husband on his show. I also worked at the Journal Sentinel and I know Derrick Nunnally, who I have always felt is a good reporter. I've also met Robert Miranda.)

Gretchen Schuldt

A reader notes that former Journal Sentinel reporter Gretchen Schuldt also has a blog/Web Site that has scooped the mainstream media on numerous stories over the years. That's definitely true - she had hints of the pension scandal first, if memory serves me right. Read her Site here.

Are we the new Massachusetts?

In several recent decisions, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has adopted a principle known as "new federalism." Although Charlie Sykes was quick to point this out, the media have pretty much ignored this trend.

The reason: Mainstream media organizations in Wisconsin often assign reporters to cover the Supreme Court who have other "beats" as well. Sometimes, those reporters don't even consistently cover the Court but are tossed in at the last second to write about big Court decisions right after they come down as editors scour the newsroom for warm bodies to take on the task. In other cases, reporters assigned to the Court also have other pressing duties, such as covering the state Legislature. As a result, there are very few (if any) reporters in this State who are covering the Court in a comprehensive manner. And there are few reporters covering the Court who have the legal expertise to even recognize a major shift when they see one or who even have a vague notion of what new federalism means.

Thus, Court cases are reported in episodic fashion (medical malpractice), or they aren't reported at all (the Court's expansion of defendants' rights in two recent cases involving expanding Miranda rights and greater police show-up identification restrictions). This isn't a slam on the reporters, who do their best under difficult circumstances. It's a slam on the media organizations, who apparently don't think the State Supreme Court is important enough to assign someone to focus on it.

So, here's a primer on what the State Supreme Court, emboldened by a new Doyle appointee (Louis Butler), has done:

• As one article put it, "The Warren Court represented the high point of judicial activism for Liberals." The Liberal Warren Court implemented what many consider to be a legal revolution, especially in cases involving criminal procedure, including the creation of the famous Miranda warnings and right to counsel.
• In 1969 and 1970, respectively, Conservatives Warren Burger and William Rehnquist were appointed to the Court. The Court shifted to the Right, especially relating to the rights of criminal defendants and police and prosecutorial powers. However, some scholars have argued about how far the Burger and Rehnquist Courts really have undone the Liberal doctrines of the Warren Court, finding that the Burger and Rehnquist Courts have limited, but not completely overturned, many of the Warren Court's most famous decisions.
• In America, individual rights and liberties come from both the national and state Constitutions but until the 1970s it was assumed the state Constitutions went only so far as the Bill of Rights. Legal scholars began arguing in the 1970s (in reaction to the Burger/Rehnquist appointments) that States could accord criminal defendants with civil liberties that are greater than those mandated by the US Supreme Court. In other words, States could give criminal defendants more rights than the federal government required, if they wished. One author equated this to basically finding a "new unused source of law."
• Some Courts started doing this in the mid 1970s.
• The term "New Federalism in Criminal Procedure" was a label invented by Professor Donald Wilkes Jr. in 1974.
• A couple years later, Liberal Justice William Brennan called on States "to step into the breach" and rectify the Burger Court's more Conservative approach by using State courts to find more liberal interpretations of criminal defendants' civil liberties. The criminal defense bar and professors joined in this call.
• New federalism has mostly involved criminal defendants' rights but has also been used in a variety of other legal areas, such as religious freedom cases. But right to a jury trial and search and seizure are the most common areas.
• Studies dating to the 1980s found that 20 percent and 7 percent of cases were decided under State law, one article noted. Through 1989, research found 232 cases in which State constitutional grounds were used to reject US Supreme Court doctrines, the article said. Another study found 450 cases through 1989, with one-third of them dealing with police and prosecutorial power.
• The leading research on the topic has argued that only a few States use new federalism: "Alaska, Florida, California, and Massachusetts." Western Courts are more likely to use New Federalism, found a study.
• States with more Conservative citizenry and with higher percapita incomes are less likely to use New Federalism, a study reported.
• In Wisconsin, the power on the Abrahamson Court shifted to the Left with Gov. Doyle's 2004 appointment of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Louis Butler. Butler replaced Conservative Justice Diane Sykes, who was appointed to the federal appeals Court, without opposition from Democratic Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold. The Court has ruled 4-3 in several cases using new federalism but has needed Conservative Justice Patrick Crooks to side with the Liberal majority to get there.

Is Judge Roberts Hot?

A blog on the federal judiciary thinks so. (Although Wonkette thinks he looks like Pat Sajak). Of course, the same blog thinks David Souter is hot too. Although ridiculous, their postings were pretty funny.

I say:

+

=Roberts

We could debate the hottest members of the Wisconsin judiciary.

On second thought, let's not.

Stagecraft: What is it with guys named John (with kids named Jack?)

Wonkette, the Washington Post, and others have noted how the scenes from John Roberts' nomination announcement mirrored Camelot. He's not the first John to try to pull this off.

(Incidentally, this is yet another reason that Russ Feingold's presidential prospects are doomed: No photos like these are possible. A bachelor would have a hard time winning the White House in an electronic age.)

The Smears Begin

Unable to pin down with certainty where he stands on hot-button issues - especially abortion - John Roberts opponents are going after his wife for her anti-abortion views. Last time I looked, Jane Roberts hadn't been nominated for the Supreme Court. Is this how far we've sunk? That we are now digging into the spouse's views?

No, actually, people are sinking even farther than that. Wonkette, a prestigious DC blog, and others, are launching a whispering campaign based on the fact that Roberts and his wife married, each for the first time, in their 40s and adopted their children.You see where this is going... Look for it to get worse and worse as the nomination proceeds.

Other interesting Roberts' tidbits:

A blog devoted entirely to Roberts' nomination has done an analysis of his votes as a federal judge. It found that:

In an effort to gauge where Judge Roberts has fallen along the ideological spectrum in the D.C. Circuit, we reviewed each of the approximately 200 decisions in which Judge Roberts voted during his brief tenure on the court of appeals. We wondered whether Judge Roberts would agree substantially more often with the circuit's most conservative judges (e.g., Sentelle, Ginsburg, or Williams) than he did with the court's more liberal members (e.g., Rogers, Garland, or Tatel). You can see the source chart here. We summarize the results below.

First, the most prominent feature of the data is how little anyone dissents or writes separately in the D.C. Circuit. Of the 191 decisions we reviewed, 97% were decided unanimously. This was so, even though the panels frequently consisted of both conservative and liberal members. Accordingly, one should not read too much into the relatively minor variations in the degree of agreement between Judge Roberts and various other judges on the circuit.

Second, when one examines the very small number of cases in which Judge Roberts disagreed in whole or in part with one of his colleagues, no clear ideological pattern emerges.

While Judge Roberts agreed most often with some of the court's most conservative members (agreeing nearly 100% of the time with judges Ginsburg and Silberman), he agreed nearly as often with some of its most liberal members (agreeing 95% of the time with judges Rogers and Garland). The two judges with whom he disagreed the most were relatively liberal judge Edwards (disagreeing in whole or part 18% of the time) and quite conservative senior judge Williams (10%).

More evidence that his record is so unrevealing of his personal opinion that his nomination will be impossible for Liberals to block (sending them hunting for the ridiculous, as noted at the top of this posting).

Why don't we ever see pictures like these?

Blair Wears Makeup...

....on the taxpayers' dime. Click here.

Interesting Bedfellows

One of the first announcements that state Supreme Court Justice N. Patrick Crooks made in his newly announced re-election campaign was to reveal that former Justice William Bablitch will be part of his campaign team. Bablitch is a Dem (although, granted, Crooks and Bablitch were colleagues). In fact, Bablitch was state Majority Leader for the Democratic Party.

Seems like an odd choice for Crooks, who had staunch Republican Scott Jensen run his campaign last time, and who needs to shore up his support on the Right after a string of decisions that ticked off Republicans (although the campaign team also includes a former Thompson-era budget director/McCallum Revenue Secretary).

Xoff Diddy, Sykes Doggy Dogg

Why bloggers are like rappers... to find out, read Dennis York.

The Great Media Cream Puff & Clown Nose Grab

You heard that right: Clown noses (Wonder what the media ended up doing with those?) As part of my continued attempt to see how common media freebies are, I've received the results of an open records request that I submitted to the Wisconsin State Fair. Turns out, they don't pass out ticket freebies to the media. They give them press passes, and free cream puffs and clown noses (Wonder if the reporters know they get cream puffs that are going to be thrown away... more on that in a minute).

Among those news organizations accepting the freebie: The Green Bay Press Gazette, which launched the criticism into Scott Walker's Harley Ride, saying: "Walker’s staff gave the Press-Gazette reporter $519 worth of tickets, which the newspaper returned because the principles of ethical conduct guiding the Press-Gazette forbid newsroom employees from accepting anything of value from people they cover or may have to cover."

This is part of my effort to expose the media's mock horror over the promotional freebies Walker had the audacity to hand out to reporters and media organizations. I wondered: Did the State dish them out too? And had the same media organizations wringing their hands in horror taken other freebies? Media organizations should not take freebies. Period. Whether it's a cream puff or, yes, a clown nose. It's a bit shocking how many of them do. But it's silly for them to pretend to be - horrified! - that Scott Walker would dare to hand out freebies. The fact of the matter is that Walker was participating in a common promotional practice. Now we could debate whether his gubernatorial bid changed the equation. Again, I get that. But it's completely disingenuous for the media to act like freebies are - shock! - unusual.

According to an open records request fulfilled by the State Fair (they were professional and timely in fulfilling it):

Entities That Received Cream Puffs as Part of 2004 Media Blitz

Green Bay Area · Television Stations: WBAY (2), WFRV (3)

· Radio Stations: WEMI/WEMY–FM, WORQ–FM, KFIZ–AM (2), WHBY–AM, WAPL–FM, WECB–FM, WNAM–AM, WOSH–AM (3), WNFL–AM (4), WTAQ–AM (4), WLYD-FM (4)

· Newspapers: Green Bay Press Gazette(!!), Oshkosh Northwestern (3), The Post-Crescent–Appleton (4)

Madison Area · Television: WISC (4), WKOW (3), WMSN (4), WMTV (4)

· Radio: WBZU-FM, WOLX-FM (2), WMAD-FM (3), WZEE-FM, WXXM-FM, WIBA-AM, WIBA-FM, WTDY-AM, WMGN-FM, WTUX-FM, WJJO-FM, WHIT-FM, WWQM-FM, WJVL-FM

· Newspapers: Isthmus (2), The Capitol Times (3), The Janesville Gazette (2), Agri-View (7)

Milwaukee Area · Television: WTMJ (5), WDTJ (5), WISN (2), WITI (5)

· Radio: WKKV (2), WQBW (2), WISN (2), WMIL (2), WRIT (2), WXSS, WMYX, WTMJ (6), WKLH, LAZER 103, WFZH (2), WKTI, WFAW

· Newspaper: Business Journal (4), Spanish Journal (2), Spanish Times, Milwaukee Magazine (2), The Onion (2), Exclusively Yours (2), Shepherd Express (2), Associated Press, The Milwaukee Community Journal, Milwaukee Courier (2), MetroParent (3), CNI Newspaper (6), The Waukesha Freeman (4)

Entities That Received Cream Puffs and a Red Nose as Part of 2005 Media Blitz

Green Bay Area

· Television Stations: WGBA (4), WLUK (6), WFRV (3)

· Radio Stations: WEMI/WEMY–FM, WORQ–FM (3), KFIZ–AM (2), WHBL–AM (5), WHBY–AM, WSCO–AM, WAPL–FM, WECB–FM, WKSZ–FM, WOZZ–FM, WNAM–AM, WOSH–AM (3)

· Newspapers: Green Bay Press Gazette (!!), Oshkosh Northwestern (3), The Post-Crescent – Appleton (2), Brillion News, Clintonville Tribune Gazette (2)

Madison Area

· Television: WKOW (3), WMTV (4)

· Radio: WBZU-FM (2), WIBA-AM, WTDY-AM, WMGN-FM, WTUX-FM, WJJO-FM, WHIT-FM, WWQM-FM, WJVL-FM

· Newspapers: The Capitol Times, The Janesville Gazette (2), Wisconsin State Journal, Agri-View (6)

Milwaukee Area · Television: WTMJ (2), WDTJ (5), WISN (3), WITI (5), WVTV, WCGV

· Radio: WKKV (2), WQBW (2), WISN (2), WMIL (2), WRIT (2), WXSS, WMYX, WKTI, WTMJ (3), WUWM, WKLH, WFZH (2), WHBL, WLKG, WRJN (3), WGEZ (2), WEXT (2), WIIL

· Newspaper: Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, The Onion (2), Exclusively Yours (2), Shepherd Express, Associated Press, The Milwaukee Community Journal, CNI Newspaper (6), The Waukesha Freeman (4), Racine Journal Times, Kewaskum Statesman

Here's the whole letter (I had stated I wasn't interested in press passes but rather in comped or free tickets or items for which the public would have to pay):

Wisconsin State Fair Park

July 18, 2005

Dear Ms. McBride:

I am writing in response to your open records request dated July 13, 2005. Except as noted below, no tickets, shirts or items of value are provided to media organizations.

The State Fair Park is given responsibility for conducting promotional events pursuant to Chapter 42 of the Wisconsin State Statutes.

Marketing is a critical component of maintaining the State Fair’s reputation, success, and profitability. An integral part of our marketing plan is an effective promotional campaign. This includes the distribution of cream puffs to media organizations.

Promotional giveaways like this are a common and well-proven marketing technique that the Fair has used for years.

Attached you will find a list of the media organizations that received promotional items from Wisconsin State Fair Park in 2004 and 2005. You also inquired about the value of these items:

A six pack of cream puffs would retail for $15. However, the cream puffs used for promotion are part of our annual test batches. Were they not used for promotion, they would have been thrown away.

In 2005, a single long stem red nose (clown nose on a plastic rose stem) also was given to media organizations. This is a small promotional item of Circus World Museum, which is producing the Circus Celebration at the Fair. Circus World Museum’s gift shop sells a dozen red noses for $25. Single noses are not available for sale but if they were, one could have a retail value of approximately $2.10.

Comprehensive press kits given to media organizations include directions outlining the procedures to qualify for and obtain a press pass for media coverage during the Fair. You stated that you are not interested in media passes, but let us know in the future if you would like to review a kit.

If you have any questions after reviewing the attached lists, please contact me at (414) 266-7029.

Regards,

Kathleen O'Leary

Director of Marketing

Vote for Leaning Blue

MKE has a poll on the best blog of the week. I recommend voting for Leaning Blue. It's a blog created by one of my students who works in the television journalism field in Milwaukee (hence her anonymity). I think she's insightful, timely, and interesting. Check it out.

Patrick Marley

His stories on the Department of Revenue's online cigarette tax grab are a quintessential example of why I previously named the Journal Sentinel's Patrick Marley as an excellent state government reporter. He definitely digs. The stories also prompted Gov. Doyle to put a stop to the action. It's good journalism.

"Diamond Jim"?

Kenesah Gaming Development LLC is trying to turn a Kenosha dog track into an off-reservation casino. The gaming group includes respected Kenosha businessman Dennis Troha, the Menominee Tribe and a Tribe of Mohegan Indians from Connecticut that run an enormously profitable casino. As a Journal Sentinel article stated previously, "The Wisconsin tribe is pairing with the Connecticut-based Mohegan tribe, which operates one of the most successful Indian casinos in the country, and Kenosha businessman Dennis Troha (who leads Kenesah Gaming)."

The Journal Sentinel reported in 2004 that, "The potentially lucrative casino site, on I-90 near Kenosha, could tap into the Chicago and Milwaukee markets and has long been eyed by the Menominee and several potential development partners."

"A previous effort several years in the making ended unsuccessfully in 2001, after infighting among casino developers and the tribe quashed the deal. It would take approval from the U.S. Interior Department to have the Dairyland track site converted to federal trust land for the casino - something that has rarely happened - along with concurrence by Gov. Jim Doyle."

The Kenosha casino interests gave Doyle a lot of money in this most recent campaign finance reporting period, according to the most recent campaign finance reports of Gov. Doyle released this week (amounts given are calendar year-to-date):

1. Leslie Troha, Executive Administrative Assistant, Kenesah Gaming Development LLC $7,500

2. Leo Chupaska, CFO Mohegan Tribe, Uncasville CT. $3,000

3. Matthew Troha, Executive, Kenesah $7,500

4. Phillip Cahill, Chief Financial Officer, Mohegan Tribe, Uncasville CT., $1000

5. Bradley Troha, Kenesah $7,500.00

6. Joan Delabreau, Chair, Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, $1,000

7. Jeffrey Hartmann, Mohegan Sun, Chief Operating Officer Uncasville CT, $3,000

8. William Velardo, CEO, Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, Uncasville CT, $3,000

9. Charles Bunnell, Deputy Chief of Staff, Mohegan Tribe, East Haddam, CT $1000

10. Mitchell Etess, Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, CT, $3,000

11. MatthewTroha, Executive, Kenesah, $7,500

12. Todd Troha, Executive, Kenesah, $7,500.

13. Michael Chapman, Chairman, Menominee Tribe, $325

14. Timothy Bartha, Chairman, Mohegan Tribal Utility Authority, Uncasville, CT, $1,000

15. Robert Soper, Senior VP, Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, CT, $3,000

Total in Kenosha casino interests YTD

$56,825

Natalie Troha, listed as a Kenosha homemaker, donated another $6,500

Lynn Troha, listed as a Kenosha homemaker, donated another $10,000

Jennifer Troha, listed as a Kenosha homemaker, donated another $10,000

Doyle to ACLU: Get Lost

Gov. Jim Doyle snubbed 7 campaign contributors, returning their combined $6000, note his recently filed campaign finance reports. Their money was OK to Doyle in the past, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign database. The money he returned this reporting period included:

• Chris Ahmuty, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Ahmuty got his $500 back. (He's donated repeatedly to Doyle before, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign).
• Pierre McCormick, an officer in the Wholesale Beer Distributors Association. (He's a previous donor too).
• Mike Gifford, a leader at the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, which started a needle exchange. Gifford tried to give $1000. (Yep, he gave a lot of money in the past too and others with the group had their money accepted)
• Keith Kolb of R.W. Baird Co., who had ponied up $250. (You got it: Past Doyle donor). He's quoted in a 1999 article on the WEAC Web Site that states:

A coalition of business, labor, education, and professional organizations is warning that the state is on the verge of breaking its commitment to fund two-thirds of public school construction costs.

The Coalition for Modern Schools was created because of concerns about two issues now under consideration that would limit school districts’ ability to construct and operate needed facilities. One proposal would reduce the state’s share of local school debt service levies; the other would limit the scheduling of school building referendums.

The governor merely lists the names of the contributors whose money he returned not the reasons for returning it or anything about them. So I don't know why he returned the money; I can only give background on the people. The other three are:

• Marc Vaccaro, who has donated to Doyle before. His job at the time was listed as Great Lakes Co., which developed the Black Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells and other indoor water parks. (His was returned because he already donated $10,000, the limit).
• Nancy Meadows, of Wells Fargo, who has also donated to Doyle before.
• Smith Engineering Consult. Couldn't find much on them.

Why We Need the Print Media

There are three really important and interesting political contests in the State right now: The governor's race, the AG's race (disclosure: my husband is running), and the Congressional race for the seat vacated by gubernatorial candidate Mark Green.

Yesterday, campaign finance reports were released in their entirety. What interested me as an observer of the media was the complete lack of interest by MOST of the media - particularly the electronic media - in these reports.

We're always hearing that newspapers are dinosaurs. But there were really three organizations scrambling for information on the reports: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Stacy Forster), the AP (Todd Richmond), and the guys at Wispolitics. All of these are print outlets. There was one Madison TV reporter calling around and there were some bloggers paying attention. But the broadcast TV media pretty much universally ignored the story. That's pretty disturbing. And that's why we need print.

Wisconsin's David Souter

Xoff (blogger Bill Christofferson) has the scoop that Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice N. Patrick Crooks is planning to run for reelection after all. On the right, political observers/strategists are predicting that Crooks will draw opposition from the RIGHT because of his recent decisions siding with the Court's Liberal trifecta.

Incidentally, I will have more on the Court's record shortly.

Nobody's Senator - and Not Even Ours

Wisconsin Democratic Senator Herb Kohl is acting really concerned and interested in the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to the US Supreme Court. He's promising a "careful review" of Roberts. Too bad he was pretty much invisible during Roberts' 2003 confirmation hearings regarding his nomination to the DC Court of Appeals. Kohl was on the Senate Committee of the Judiciary then, and he is now too. As such, he will have more power over the Roberts' matter than most other Senators.

But a review of the transcript from the first hearing and from the second shows that Kohl acted pretty much uninterested in Roberts (he asked him NOTHING in hearing two). Sen. Russ Feingold, in contrast, asked a lot more of the nominee (I'll get to that in a posting later, likely tomorrow).

Here's all that Kohl was interested to know (you might want to pop some No-Doz before reading on, which of course is the point):

Kohl focused mostly on the other nominees, then asked the following line of questioning of Roberts (I've deleted the parts where, in between questioning Roberts, he tossed similar questions to other nominees):

Senator Kohl: ...Mr. Roberts, how do you feel about the validity of maintaining or throwing out secret settlements that are made which prevent other people who may be using these defective products from knowing that they are defective, like defective tires, for example, defective medical devices, for example?

Mr. Roberts: It's not an area that I have litigated in either. I certainly am aware of the cases as they've come up, although I don't think it's an issue that the D.C. Circuit has addressed. At least I'm not aware that it's done so. And I hesitate to opine on it without having studied the law. I certainly would obviously follow the Supreme Court precedent and the precedent of the circuit if I were to be confirmed.

I suspect that you're correct that the applicable law would involve some balancing. There are some interests in sealing settlements in some cases, but I'd be very surprised if that required or permitted sealing in a case where that actively concealed a harmful condition on an ongoing basis that was continuing to present a danger. But, again, I'm just surmising at this point, and as a judge, I would apply the law in the circuit or in the Supreme Court.

Kohl:…Last question. One of my priorities on this Committee is my role on the Antitrust Subcommittee. Strong antitrust enforcement is essential to ensuring that competitive flourishes throughout our country which benefits consumers through lower prices and better-quality products and services. Federal courts are essential to the firm enforcement of our antitrust laws and to ensuring that anti-competitive conduct is sanctioned.

Many antitrust questions are decided under what is known as the rule of reason in which the harm caused by the business conduct at issue is balanced against full competitive justifications. This document gives a great deal of discretion to the courts to determine whether or not the antitrust laws have been violated.

What would be your approach to deciding antitrust issues under the rule of reason? More generally, please give us your views regarding the role of the judiciary with respect to the enforcement of antitrust law.

Mr. Roberts: As a private lawyer, I have actually represented probably more plaintiffs and enforcement interests in antitrust actions than defendants. I represented the State Attorneys General in the Microsoft case and represented several private plaintiffs in antitrust appeals as well, handled some antitrust cases when I was in the Solicitor General's office.

I've also represented corporations accused of antitrust violations, and I think that balanced perspective is something that's valuable for a judge. I certainly think a lawyer coming into court, if I were to be confirmed, representing a plaintiff in an antitrust action should take some comfort in the fact that I've done that. And a lawyer representing a defendant should take some comfort in the fact that I have done that as well and I have the perspective of the issue from both sides.

So, again, obviously as judge, I'd follow the binding Supreme Court precedent and the precedent in my circuit. But I would hope that in doing so, I would have some added perspective from having been on both sides, both the plaintiff side and the defendant side, in antitrust enforcement actions.

Senator Kohl: Thank you.

Yawn!

Why John Roberts Will Strike the Fear of Souter In the Hearts of Conservatives

John G. Roberts Jr. answering Sen. Dick Durbin's question pressing him to clarify his position on Roe v. Wade in 2003:

"I don't--Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. It is not--it's a little more than settled. It was reaffirmed in the face of a challenge that it should be overruled in the Casey decision. Accordingly, it's the settled law of the land. There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent, as well as Casey..."

***

Roberts on whether he'd be a judicial activist, also in 2003:

"My practice has not been ideological in any sense. My clients and their positions are liberal and conservative across the board. I have argued in favor of environmental restrictions and against takings claims. I've argued in favor of affirmative action. I've argued in favor of prisoners' rights under the Eighth Amendment. I've argued in favor of antitrust enforcement. At the same time, I've represented defendants charged with antitrust cases. I've argued cases against affirmative action. And what I've been able to do in each of those cases is set aside any personal views and discharge the professional obligation of an advocate."

(Note: Trust me, the transcripts are worth reading to the end. I'll get to those in a minute.)

The mainstream media are spinning John Roberts' nomination this way so far: President Bush has managed the impossible by nominating a Conservative to the US Supreme Court who is just Conservative enough to please the Right and just respected, non fire-breathing, and fuzzy enough to please the Left.

Don't count on it.

On the surface, there is a lot to show Roberts as a reliable Conservative. A clerk for Rehnquist. A member of the Federalist Society (update: according to newspaper reports this morning, apparently he is not). Served in the Administrations of both Reagan and George HW Bush. An earlier nomination stalled by Dems. Donated to GOP candidates. Worked closely with Ken Starr.

The key phrase is: On the surface.

Don't let all the focus on the brief Roberts once signed that argued for overturning Roe v. Wade throw you off. The central question of his nomination on this and several other lightning rod topics (environmentalism, affirmative action, among them) will be crystallized this way: Did this (and other cases) represent his personal views or just the views of the Administration (or client) for which/whom he worked? He was a government and private lawyer a LOT longer than he's been a judge (look for his ruling on Congressional power in interstate commerce to be one of the scant judicial decisions to receive a lot of focus). But more of the time he was paid to represent someone else's point of view (that may, or may not, have matched his own).

Many on the Right and in the Mainstream Media are arguing that this plausible deniability has made Roberts the ideal Bush choice - he's just stealthy enough to wriggle out from any cleverly laid Democratic nooses. But, they are assuming they know what lies in his supposedly Conservative heart. The shadow of David Souter (and, regarding abortion, Anthony Kennedy) hangs over him. And, when Republicans start familiarizing themselves with his record, they will find that he was also a vigorous advocate the other political direction in various cases. They will find a lot that will strike the fear of Souter in their hearts. In the end, Roberts comes across as consistently principled in one way: As a vigorous advocate for whomever happened to be his client. What's in the man's own heart? That's unclear.

This could make Bush's choice genius (if the definition of genius is picking someone who will get through; but that is what happened with Souter, and that would mean the Democratic gameplan has worked by preventing the nomination of anyone who is as outspoken about Conservative principles as Democratic nominees have been about Democratic ones). Roberts will be impossible to peg as an extremist on either side. Some might argue, this is exactly what America needs - a Justice who will interpret the law, not legislate from the bench (we think). A man who does not put ideology first (we think). A nominee whose integrity and impeccable lawyering skills are respected by a slew of bipartisan lawyers. In other words, he's qualified. That can't be questioned, at least based on the facts known to date. But is he really reliably Conservative? For those on the Right, who will judge Bush's legacy by this measure, there is a lot to massage the worry beads over (and you don't have to take my word for it; it's his words that are revealing).

The far Left will predictably go nuclear. They'd go nuclear on anyone who didn't expressly say they were for abortion. I'm not talking about Congress; Senators will have a more difficult tightrope to walk because of Roberts' easy confirmation to the Court of Appeals just two short years ago (a review of the transcripts shows why) and because it would be very hard for them to be blatantly against him because he's not expressly PRO abortion. But look for more and more consternation to grow on the Right as Roberts' past is scrutinized. The truth of his ideology is obscured in Souter-like shadows, at least publicly. Perhaps Bush had a window into his heart through their tete a tete at the White House. But stealth candidates have come back to bite the Republicans before. Will they really risk settling for one again? (In contrast, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's support for abortion could not have been more clear). Will the Right really be able to rely on blind faith again? But the Right is in a box. Republican Senators can hardly oppose Roberts because he is not expressly anti-abortion, either. Republicans' previous insistence that the personal views of nominees are not fair game is about to come back to bite them in the case of this - as the Washington Post just put it - "Sphinx-like" nominee.

The last Sphinx was Souter.

The best clues about Roberts can be found in the transcripts of his 2003 confirmation hearing to the Court of Appeals before the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary (to which Wisconsin Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold are members; I will be posting analysis of their roles in his earlier confirmation later). I've taken these passages directly from the transcripts themselves and read the whole thing (as opposed to picking up various passages from other sources).

Here are just some of the statements that will strike the Fear of Souter in the hearts of Conservatives and will, at the same time, make Democratic hyperbole against Roberts hard to sustain (why aren't we hearing these things from the MSM?).

From the transcripts: (To read them yourself, go to the first hearing transcript and the second hearing transcript.)

Senator Orrin Hatch, Judiciary Committee Chairman, waxed on about Roberts' liberal record in 2003: (my emphasis in bold)

Now, Mr. Roberts, although my Democratic colleagues are, and some in the Senate and elsewhere, have tried to paint you as an extremist, the truth is, is that you are a well-respected appellate lawyer, who has represented an extremely diverse group of clients before the courts. In fact, you have often represented clients and what is considered to be the so-called "liberal'' position on issues. I would just like to ask you about a few of these cases.

In the case of Barry v. Little, you represented welfare recipients in the District of Columbia, right?

Mr. Roberts. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Hatch. You took this case on a pro bono basis; is that correct?

Mr. Roberts. Yes.

Chairman Hatch. Pro bono means that you did not get paid for it.

Mr. Roberts. No, I did not.

Chairman Hatch. You voluntarily represented these people and gave services to them.

Mr. Roberts. Yes.

Chairman Hatch. Now, in another case, Hudson v. McMillian, you successfully argued before the Supreme Court the claims of a prison inmate who alleged cruel and unusual punishment, did you not?

Mr. Roberts. Yes. I was representing the United States in that case. We filed a brief supporting the prisoner's claim that his Eighth Amendment rights had been violated by a beating.

Chairman Hatch. In Rice v. Kayatama, you argued on behalf of a wise Democratic attorney general and Governor, both Democrats, in favor of a race-conscious program to benefit Native Hawaiians, right?

Mr. Roberts. That's correct, Mr. Chairman. It is one of several cases that I have found particularly gratifying, where Democratic State attorneys general have retained me to represent their State in the Supreme Court. That has happened on several other occasions as well, and a group of Democratic attorneys general, as well as a couple of Republican attorneys general, retained me to argue the Microsoft antitrust case in the D.C. Circuit. I found that particularly gratifying because it indicated that they thought my abilities were such that I would be able to represent them effectively, and certainly wouldn't be dissuaded in any way by any political considerations.

Chairman Hatch. Let us talk about the Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. In that case, you represented a State regulatory agency before the Supreme Court, arguing in favor of limits on property development and in support of protection of the Lake Tahoe area; is that correct?

Mr. Roberts. That is correct.

Chairman Hatch. Finally, in the 2001 landmark Microsoft antitrust case, you argued on behalf of the Clinton Justice Department. Who asked you to do that?

Mr. Roberts. It was the group of States that had jointly pursued the litigation with the Federal Government. So it was actually the Democratic and Republican attorneys general, representing their States, that retained me to argue for them.

Chairman Hatch. So you argued on behalf of primarily Democratic State attorneys; is that right?

Mr. Roberts. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Hatch. Well, Mr. Roberts, a Legal Times article that ran last May described you as "someone who has represented clients on both the conservative side and the liberal side of ideologically charged cases and who has encountered no plausible criticism of his fitness to serve.''

I think these cases that I have just mentioned there, I have asked you about, illustrate this point perfectly, and I completely agree. I have yet to hear any plausible criticism of your fitness to serve in this very important position.

And then there're Roberts' comments in response to Sen. Ted Kennedy's interrogation on whether he'd be an activist Conservative justice along the lines of a Scalia:

Mr. Roberts: I guess what I would point to, Senator--I'm obviously not a sitting judge. I don't have decisions--but I do have a history of litigating cases, and when you talk about the ability to set aside personal views and apply precedent without regard to personal ideology or personal views, that's something I've been able to do in my practice.

My practice has not been ideological in any sense. My clients and their positions are liberal and conservative across the board. I have argued in favor of environmental restrictions and against takings claims. I've argued in favor of affirmative action. I've argued in favor of prisoners' rights under the Eighth Amendment. I've argued in favor of antitrust enforcement.

At the same time, I've represented defendants charged with antitrust cases. I've argued cases against affirmative action. And what I've been able to do in each of those cases is set aside any personal views and discharge the professional obligation of an advocate.

And I would urge you to look at cases on both sides. Look at the brief, look at the argument where I was arguing the pro environmental position. Take a brief and an argument where I was arguing against environmental enforcement on behalf of a client. See if the professional skills applied, the zealous advocacy is any different in either of those cases. I would respectfully submit that you'll find that it was not.

Now, that's not judging, I understand that, but it is the same skill, setting aside personal views, taking the precedents and applying them either as an advocate or as a judge.

And now for the coup de grace. Here's how Roberts answered Liberal Sen. Dick Durbin's questioning on that famous abortion brief he signed onto:

Q: ...in 1991, you are in the Solicitor General's Office, and in Rust v. Sullivan, you end up signing on to a brief which calls for overturning Roe v. Wade, one of the more controversial Supreme Court cases of my lifetime. When we asked repeatedly in questions of you what your position is on Roe v. Wade, you have basically danced away and said, "No, no, my personal views mean nothing. I am just going to apply the law.''

This, in my mind, is evasive. I need to hear something more definitive from you. Was the statement in that brief an expression of your personal and legal feelings about Roe v. Wade, that it should be repealed?

Mr. Roberts: The statement in the brief was my position as an advocate for a client. We were defending a Health and Human Services program in which the allegation was that the regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services burdened the constitutional right to an abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade.

At that time, it was the position of the administration, articulated in four different briefs filed with the Supreme Court, briefs that I hadn't worked on, that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

Now, if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, the challenge to the regulations that we were tasked with defending would fail, and so it was appropriate in that case to include that argument. I think it was all of one or two sentences. The bulk of the brief was addressed to why the regulations were valid, in any event.

But since that was the administration position, and the administration was my client, I reiterated that position in the brief because it was my responsibility to defend that HHS program.

Senator Durbin: Understood. I have been an attorney, represented a client, sometimes argued a position that I did not necessarily buy, personally. And so I am asking you today what is your position on Roe v. Wade?

Mr. Roberts: I don't--Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. It is not--it's a little more than settled. It was reaffirmed in the face of a challenge that it should be overruled in the Casey decision. Accordingly, it's the settled law of the land. There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent, as well as Casey.

Senator Durbin: Then, let me ask you this question. You make a painful analogy, from my point of view, when you suggest that calling for the overturn of Roe v. Wade was not any different than the Government calling for overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. Plessy v. Ferguson, separate, but equal, was really the basis for racial discrimination and segregation in America for decades.

I hope that that is just a strict legal analogy and does not reflect your opinion of Roe v. Wade policy compared to Plessy v. Ferguson policy.

Mr. Roberts: Senator, the question I was asked, were there other occasions in which the Department--if I am remembering correctly--if there were other occasions in which the Solicitor General had urged that a Supreme Court precedent be overturned, and that is just--Brown v. Board of Education is the most prominent one. The answer wasn't meant to draw a particular substantive analogy.

Senator Durbin: And I will not push any further because I was hoping that is what your response would be.

And Roberts sailed through. Is it any wonder?

Fuzzy Math

How close is the US Supreme Court to overturning Roe v. Wade? Not that close at all, even WITH John Roberts, says a non-partisan fact-checking group. Roberts, were he to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, would only likely be the 4th vote, along with Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia. The key: Anthony Kennedy, nominated by Ronald Reagan.

This point is likely to get lost in all the media accounts and rhetoric. Says the group:

Abortion-rights activists point to a Supreme Court decision in 2000 striking down a Nebraska law against so-called "partial birth" abortions. That case, Stenberg v. Carhart, was indeed decided by a single vote, 5-4. But the fourth dissenting vote in that case was Justice Anthony Kennedy, who went out of his way to write that he did not question the basic holding in Roe.

Thomas wrote a dissent, joined by Rehnquist and Scalia, saying of Roe: "that decision was grievously wrong." But Kennedy did not join that dissent. Instead, he wrote his own saying, "The holding of Casey, allowing a woman to elect abortion in defined circumstances, is not in question here." And Casey reaffirmed Roe. What Kennedy would have allowed in that case was a Nebraska law banning a procedure sometimes used in late-term abortions.

The same group skewers Senators on both sides of the political aisle for giving misleading information in the Supreme Court abortion debate. Read here.

Legislative Logic

So lawmakers just voted a 4% raise for their own positions, but they earlier gutted any increase for average UW System faculty and academic staff (yes, I'm one of them as a matter of disclosure.) As I've written before, average UW faculty and academic staff received raises of 0% and 1% the last two years respectively (the 1% was eaten up by a health insurance increase) and the 2% just approved for them for next year would have been gutted by the Legislature's hastily passed 1.5% new pension contribution (Gov. Doyle just vetoed it). Media accounts on the pension measure keep leaving out the context - the overall compensation increases (or rather lack thereof) the past few years.

Of the lawmakers' pay raises, it was said:

"They're minimal - barely keeping up with inflation," said Senate President Alan Lasee (R-DePere). "We didn't get a pay raise last time."

I agree with him! I don't begrudge the Leggies cost of living raises. They have to support their families too. But all I am saying is that you could say the same exact thing and use the same exact logic about average UW System faculty and academic staff, along with other non unionized state workers.

Joe Wilson

To understand why Conservatives are slamming the credibility of Valerie Plame's husband Joe Wilson, who was trashtalking the White House during an election season sparking the Karl Rove-Matt Cooper conversation, read the U.S. Senate's report on the U.S Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessments on Iraq.

This has been widely reported, but it's interesting to read the source document behind the rhetoric. The Niger section starts on pg. 36 but skip to pg. 44 to read a listing of Wilson's twists on the truth from this bi-partisan committee.

Wedding Crasher

"In Washington, I work with boobs every day," said John McCain, defending his appearance in the R-rated flick the Wedding Crashers.

Bumperstickers and Blowhards

The bumpersticker site Charlie Sykes linked to earlier in the day now has only vicious anti-John Roberts' stuff on it in the Supreme Court section. Not that this is surprising. It's not. But it's still interesting to see how quickly these people move. They literally have no shame.

Other stuff on the site is unintentionally (or intentionally?) hilarious:

John Schmid

Bruce Murphy, a talented writer who knows how to dig, has an interesting article today in Milwaukee magazine on Journal Sentinel reporter John Schmid. It's driving me crazy though, because there's a whole fascinating back story not being reported about one of Schmid's stories on Milwaukee's inner city. Problem is, I heard it off the record. If I can talk the person who told me about it into letting me say more I'll repost...

Bumpersticker Politics

Charlie Sykes has an interesting (and humorous) link on his blog this morning to a site already selling bumperstickers bashing every possible choice Bush could make to the US Supreme Court. The ground is set...

The Media Say of Rove: It Wasn't a Crime!

If you want to read a point-by-point, fervent defense that Karl Rove did not commit a crime, read the legal brief filed by 36 media organizations and reporters' groups (basically all the big ones - Newsweek, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, etc.) who were trying to keep Miller and Cooper from having to reveal their anonymous sources in the Plame case. That's right. The media groups strenuously argued that Rove did not commit a crime. In fact, the brief reads as if the media groups are the defense attorney for Rove!

The brief contains some very interesting lines in light of the recent media juggernaut over Karl Rove, such as:

• "In this case there exists ample evidence on the public record to cast serious doubt as to whether a crime has even been committed under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act...
• "But the circumstances needed to prove a crime seem not to be present here..."
• "Public information casts considerable doubt that the government took the 'affirmative measures' required by the act to disclose Plame's identity."
• "There are sufficient facts on the public record that cast considerable doubt as to whether the CIA took the necessary 'affirmative measures' to conceal Plame's identity. Indeed, these facts establish such sloppy tradecraft that, at minimum, the CIA was indifferent to the compromise of her identity."
• "When columnist Novak contacted the CIA to verify whether Plame worked for the agency, he says that the agency not only verified her employment but also failed to give him a serious request not to publish her name."
• "Did no one at Langley think that Plame's identity might be compromised if her spouse writes a nationally-distributed op-ed piece discussing a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her subject matter expertise?"
• "The public record provides ample evidence that the CIA was at least cavalier about, if not complicit in, the publishing of Plame's name."
• "At the threshhold, an agent whose identity has been revealed must truly be covert for there to be a violation of the Act. To the average observer, much less to the professional intelligence operative, Plame was not given the 'deep cover' required of a covert agent."
• "There is ample evidence on the public record to cast considerable doubt that a crime has been committed." (The words I bolded were underlined in the original document).

Here's a list of some of the organizations:

CNN

The Hearst Corporation

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Gannett Co., Inc.

Newsweek, Inc.

ABC

Tribune Company

Washington Post

Cox Newspapers, Inc.

Daily News, L.P.

CBS

The E.W. Scripps Co.

And so on. You name a major media organization in this country and there's a good chance it falls under one of the umbrella groups who filed this brief.

So, the question is: Wouldn't it be wrong for these organizations to run editorials slamming Rove as a lawbreaker or for wrongdoing when they've argued in Court (when it served their interest) that he did not commit a crime? It will be interesting to see how many do/have already done so.

The Great Vaccine Scare

Remember the heated rhetoric right before the presidential election about how that evil Bush was endangering the lives of little old ladies everywhere because of a vaccine shortage? The Journal Sentinel editorial board opined virtually on the eve of the election:

"Whether they're Republicans, Democrats or independents, voters should be asking themselves how an administration that has made protecting Americans from terrorists the centerpiece of its re-election campaign managed to drop the ball on protecting Americans from a more familiar menace a potentially life-threatening disease that crops up every year as sure as clockwork."

The vaccine shortage reminds me of another election-eve scare tactic: Milwaukee's going to run out of ballots because of that evil Scott Walker! (actually, at the end of it all, we had thousands upon thousands of ballots left over too.)

And so it goes with flu vaccine.

According to a recent posting in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's government reporters' blog, the state sent back last month a final total of 56,000 leftover doses of the flu vaccine. The blog report adds:

By the time the flu season passed, those who needed the vaccine were covered, but many who wanted a shot didn’t get one in time or went without one for the winter.

The blog also notes that the state tried to get clearance to start giving the vaccine to people who weren't high risk but didn't get it until right before the season ended. But the key is that high risk people were covered. The Americans who needed the vaccine were "protected."

More on Villa

Confirming what I revealed on the Belling show as a hot tip Sunday (show tapes Friday) and then in more detail on my blog and in wispolitics on Monday, the JS will run this story Tues. confirming Walker's appointment of Villa (it's up now on the JS Web site):

Read the story here. PR consultant Todd Robert Murphy equated Villa to the Karl Rove of Milwaukee, without the baggage.

Jim Villa

Boots and Sabers blog tonight on the Villa appointment. Well put.

Flip flop faux pas

Northwestern U's championship lacrosse team meets Bush at the White House and.. wears flip flops? Read the humorous Chicago Tribune account.

Summerfest attendance

I've heard a lot of speculation about Summerfest's attendance figures from people who anecdotally thought it looked like fewer people were there this year. So, I asked spokesman John Boler about that today too. I wanted to know the different categories that Summerfest used to come up with its final attendance tally this year of 901,841 people, a 4% increase. The media dubbed the 901,841 people "patrons."

Boler stated that Summerfest only puts out the attendance tally in aggregate form. In other words, Summerfest releases the total but not the categories that make it up. So I asked whether Summerfest includes vendor and worker totals in its overall attendance figure. He said they do!

In otherwords, if somebody enters the gate just to flip burgers or whatever at the fest, they're counted. I asked him if Summerfest has always included vendors and workers in its tally or if this is the first year those have been counted. He said that historically Summerfest has always counted those people in the attendance number. That would mean that the 4% increase is not due to a difference in methodology, at least in that respect, unless the percentage of workers and vendors increased a lot, which seems unlikely. I asked him how many vendors and workers were counted but he didn't have the #s handy. If they count the vendors and workers every single day they walk through the gate, that could add up.

I called because I was considering doing something on this for a Milwaukee Insight piece but because they won't provide exact categories, I decided to just post it instead. Rather than just accepting them at face value, the media should pursue attendance figures more and put pressure on Summerfest to disclose what specific categories it uses to come up with the #.

Freebies

I was interested in the media freebie controversy so I put in some calls and open records requests to various organizations to see how common the practice is of organizations giving freebies to media outlets. Here are some of the responses I've gotten (a few interesting ones are still out there):

• Milwaukee World Festivals Inc.

Marketing head John Boler refused to tell me how many free tickets the organization gives to media organizations for Summerfest and other Milwaukee festivals. He stated, "We don't release that information and we don't have any obligation to." That's because, he said, they are a private organization not subject to the open records law.

I asked him why the organization doesn't just provide the information even if it technically doesn't have to do so. He wouldn't do so. I told him I remembered in the Journal Sentinel newsroom that they always distributed free Summerfest tickets to reporters, but I don't know how they obtained them. He stated that Milwaukee World Festivals doesn't give out "free" tickets (or "comped" tickets) but that any tickets that "would have ever been provided" to media organizations are provided through "trade agreements in exchange for advertising, inventory, and services" or to radio stations for viewer on-air promotions.

It strikes me that if such trade agreements do exist, it's a bit hypocritical for the media to act like doling out promotional freebies is a really, really unusual thing and a big deal. Granted, the difference in the recent media freebie brouhaha is that the tickets were handed out by a politician in the middle of a campaign. I get that. I still think the media are acting a bit holier than thou on the - gasp! - ticket freebie issue when they have all kinds of promotional and sponsorship deals with organizations that they give a lot of ink to. They are acting like ticket freebies to the media are a really unusual thing.

• Mayor Tom Barrett's Office

Spokeswoman Carlene Orig stated that Mayor Barrett's office neither gets free festival tickets, nor gives any free tickets to media organizations or reporters.

• State of Wisconsin Department of Tourism

Communications Director Jerry Huffman emailed me and stated:

MY QUESTION:

From your Web site: Media kits covering statewide travel information are developed and sent to Midwest and select national media outlets (print, broadcast and electronic), trade publications, motorcoach and meeting planner publications. Seasonal media kits focus on events and activities for spring, summer, fall, holiday and winter.

My question is: Do these media kits contain free tickets to state events, facilities, festivities, or anything really that the public would have to pay admission for of any amount?

[Huffman, Jerry] Media kits do not include tickets to any Wisconsin events.

If so, please list which tickets and please provide which Wisconsin media outlets received these media kits the past two years. If the kits do not contain free tickets or passes, does your agency provide such items to Wisconsin media outlets and if so, what and to which ones in the past two years? I am not referring to press passes; I am referring to actual tickets.

[Huffman, Jerry] Let me give you the information we do have and if that isn't sufficient please feel free to contact me directly.

1) From time to time we will work with a foreign journalist so they can have access to an event. In the last two years we have no record of working with a Wisconsin journalist on this kind of request---if they are local they generally contact the event or location directly. We do sometimes work with a foreign or national writers but those requests are handled as a "press pass."

2) If I understand your question correctly---we sometimes work with stations or media outlets to give them tickets as a contest give-a-way to promote an event---but those are to be used as a prize for their readers or audience.

I then asked:

Do you stipulate to the media that they can ONLY use the tickets for give-aways to the public? How is that determined for sure?

He responded: yes, we make that distinction... the only thing we can do is rely on their professionalism that if they accept the tickets on those terms that they will keep their word. if we find out someone is misusing the tickets they're off our list. so far, knock on wood, we believe every station has been direct and forthcoming with us and kept the agreement.

• VISIT Milwaukee, which defines itself as the "premier marketer of Greater Milwaukee"

The Wisconsin State Journal ran an Associated Press story on the Walker freebies. The Capital Times ran a column by Joel McNally bashing the ride and freebies.

According to David Fantle, director of public relations for VISIT Milwaukee, both newspapers have in the past year run stories written by freelancers who got freebies (stories that mentioned Milwaukee tourism). In the case of the State Journal, Fantle said the group set up the writer with free access to attractions, such as the zoo and domes. The writer brought his kids along. In the case of the Capital Times, the writer came to Milwaukee as part of a conference and VISIT Milwaukee comped the writer's hotel, some food, and bus tours to various attractions.

He said that it is very common for VISIT Milwaukee to give freebies to travel reporters if they can prove they are with a credible organization and have a legitimate story planned. He said the group even gives such reporters free airfare and hotel rooms, among other freebies. The reason: VISIT Milwaukee sees such positive press as providing much more credibility to the city as a tourist attraction than advertising would. This is a far less common practice among mainstream newspaper organizations, which often have policies forbidding it, than it is among freelancers, he said. But if the news organizations asked, VISIT Milwaukee would give them free stuff.

For example, VISIT Milwaukee hosts what it calls "fams" - familiarization tours. The group just hosted a Summerfest "Fam" for a handful of national travel writers (none from Wisconsin). The group provides free airfare, comped hotels and free admissions, depending on the organization. They even have something called "press rates", which means reporters get lower hotel costs and the like, which VISIT Milwaukee gets from its members and passes on to the writers. Press rates have gone to a Chicago television station and the Weather Channel, among others.

Radio promotions are really common, he said. The difference is that VISIT Milwaukee tailors its freebies to media organizations and/or reporters who have a specific tourism-related story in mind, rather than handing them out en masse to media organizations as a fishing expedition for a story.

As for Walker, he said that the group desires Walker and other Milwaukee public officials to act as "cheerleaders" for Milwaukee tourist attractions. VISIT Milwaukee gave Walker media kits to hand out on the Harley Ride but not free tickets. Fantle provided these statistics to demonstrate the importance of tourism to Milwaukee County: "Visitors to the Greater Milwaukee Area spent more than $2.4 billion in 2004, maintaining tourism’s ranking as the number two industry in the region. The industry also supported 61,219 full-time equivalent jobs, $1.4 billion in wages and contributed $385 million in state and local taxes."

The Name

I've decided to "out" the name I am hearing in my Walker hot tip since I've heard a lot of other media/opinion types are buzzing around trying to figure it out so it's unlikely to hold long anyway.

Jim Villa.

Villa is the political strategist for Walker's campaign. He is also Walker's former county chief of staff who left to run his campaign just a year ago. He runs a political strategy company and the Walker race is the company's big campaign. And I am hearing that the plan as of now is that Villa will move back into the chief of staff position he vacated, replacing the current chief of staff. I'm hearing the reason is the campaign's unhappiness with the press slapping Walker's been getting this summer over the Harley Ride, museum problems, and a series of other county issues. There is a belief among some political observers that Walker needs to better respond to these issues. The announcement of the hiring of Bruce Pfaff as his campaign manager set the stage.

I think such a move would be asking for an avalanche of media criticism and would invite constant scrutiny over the division between the county exec's official duties and his campaign (already a subject of endless debate on the Left). On top of it, Villa is regarded as the smartest operative Walker's got. Of course, there is a long history of workers for public employees switching over to their campaigns or being put on the public payroll after a campaign ends. But making such a switcheroo in the middle of a campaign - from campaign to county as opposed to the reverse - strikes me as unusual.

Of course, there's a very real possibility Walker & Co. will reconsider before actually implementing the move (in my humble opinion, they should), and this will all become a moot debate.

Update: Appointment now publicly confirmed! See home page top postings for two links.

The Rest of the Story

Part of what Bill Christofferson leaves out...or is he just playing dumb?

Mayor Barrett... and the Vision Thing

Read my new column at wisopinion.com on Mayor Barrett.

Quick thought

Democratic pundits would have you believe Scott Walker's Harley Ride was only about political gain in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race (yes, they're still talking about it in recent columns). The ride also stopped in Rockford, Ill. and St. Paul, Mn. Granted, the television markets for the stop reach into Wisconsin. It's still pretty interesting to see the actual route. Also, an interesting post on media freebies from Badger Blogger.

Politics?

Political gain to help a campaign? No, there's absolutely no potential political gain involved in this trip.

The stories we never hear from Iraq

Soldier survives attack; captures, medically treats sniper.

Read here. You can even watch the actual video of the attack.

Why don't we see video like that on the evening news?

And why don't we see more pictures like these?

Paul Begala Goes Off the Deep End

The over-the-top, self-defeating anger continues... In the latest episode, Democratic pundit/political strategist Paul Begala actually said the following:

Begala's presence on the panel (for liberal college students) created a stir when he declared that Republicans had "done a p***-poor job of defending" the U.S.

Republicans, he said, "want to kill us."

"I was driving past the Pentagon when that plane hit" on Sept. 11, 2001.

"I had friends on that plane; this is deadly serious to me," Begala said."They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted -- that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit," Begala said. "That is bulls*** national defense, and we should say that." The Clinton administration's national security efforts involved the right blend of "experience" and "strength," Begala said, an assertion with which the 9/11 Commission apparently disagreed.

Read the whole article.

Matt Cooper

Liberal Blogger Bill Christofferson selects this paragraph from Matt Cooper's new article in Time magazine detailing his grand jury testimony in the Plame matter:

"Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the "agency" on "WMD"? Yes."

But what Cooper actually wrote in entirety was:

"So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the "agency" on "WMD"? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me. At this point, I'm as curious as anyone else to see what Patrick Fitzgerald has."

Selective editing? Or just playing dumb?

The key questions, of course, will be:

Did Rove know Plame was covert?

Was she in fact covert at the time?

Did Rove learn of her status from classified information or somewhere else (such as from another reporter)?

Cooper's testimony doesn't answer those key questions.

Former Clinton strategist Dick Morris argues that Rove has done nothing illegal and is being tossed to the "partisan wolves".

Baby Pics

Here's a cute new picture of my baby, Annie. And here's a funny picture of her with Paul. I think she looks a lot like him, although her eyes are from my side of the family (so far anyway).

Other people say she looks like her brother Matthew. Here's one of my favorite pictures with Matthew. Sorry for all the family pics, but I love my family so you will be seeing a lot of them!!!

Hot Tip

I hear from two sources that Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker is about to replace his county chief of staff with someone more political. The selection of Bruce Pfaff as his campaign manager is part of the domino chain leading to this soon-to-be-announced move (unless he reconsiders; this is the game plan as of the end of last week). If he chooses the name I'm hearing to replace his county chief of staff... it will be very controversial. It's part of a campaign shake-up in the wake of the negative press he's been receiving this summer.

Um, learn how to spell

Spotted on the campaign Web site of the Republican running against my husband in the AG primary:

(News article title) MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINALThursday, May 05, 2005 (News article title) MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINALMonday, March 07, 2005

Umm.... It's Milwaukee Journal SENTINEL.

Keeping Track of Voter Fraud

Nine people have now been charged with voter fraud in the elections.... with more expected.

Two questions:

• Why aren't any of the charges coming out of the Milwaukee DA's office?
• Why are the charges being downplayed so much by the MSM? (blink and you'll miss it)

Yes, those questions are also rhetorical.

Peace? Or ap"peace"meant?

I checked out the Peace Majority Report Web Site after Liberal columnist John Nichols and Liberal Blogger Bill Christofferson dissed Congressman Mark Green (and gubernatorial candidate) for his consistent record of voting pro defense (which, yes, I am sure Green considers a positive).

The rankings are interesting. Tammy Baldwin, for example, scores more anti-war (or, some might say, anti-defense) than even far Left Maxine Waters and John Conyers. She and Gwen Moore are among the most anti-war members of Congress. Green is among the most pro-defense members of Congress, although Jim Sensenbrenner is more pro-defense than him. The organization says its rankings "include legislation in three broad areas: 1) votes to authorize and fund war, and to support its conduct; 2) votes for excessive investment in preparations for war; and 3) votes for strengthening global peace institutions."

Of course, the group fails to realize that "excessive investment in preparations for war" can be an effective self-defense strategy, such as when Reagan's military buildup helped end the Cold War.

But what really bothered me about this site is that it goes beyond simply being a "pro-peace" site. It looks like an online news site. Only, every news story on its home page is anti-Iraq. It's basically a round-up of everything going wrong in Iraq - or with everything in Iraq spun to be going wrong.

Now, I hardly believe that everything goes right in Iraq all the time. Far from it. And legitimate questions certainly can be raised about Iraq. But there's something rather reprehensible about an organization that sets out to dig up every possible negative item it can find to put the American military action in Iraq in a bad light while our soldiers are fighting overseas. For example, the "news" headlines on the site include headlines like: "The Painful Truth; The Iraq war is a new kind of hell, with more survivors -- but more maimed, shattered limbs -- then ever" and "The Soldier's Heart; The psychological cost on those who fight the Iraq war. Who teaches them how to live with themselves?" Again, I am not saying stories like these aren't news or that they shouldn't be reported. But this site reports nothing else - it thrives on such negativity. Some things on the site are thought-provoking though, such as when it links to shockingly graphic photos out of Iraq and the first Gulf War. I do not think we should censor the realities of War, and looking at the photos underscores how much we do. At the same time, the photo displays ignore the reasons we went to war in both cases. In the case of the Gulf War, Saddam had invaded Kuwait and was heading toward Saudi Arabia next, which would have destabilized the entire Middle East. In the case of Iraq, although the intelligence was faulty, it was intelligence believed not only by Bush but by Congress and foreign governments. In a post-911 world, should Bush have ignored that apparent threat? If we waited until the threat was truly imminent, New York would be gone. But if you have a steel stomach, this is a site with some chilling photos. One wonders, though, why this group doesn't also post photos of the American soldiers and Iraqi children killed by suicide bombers, the Kurds gassed by Saddam, and the Americans beheaded by terrorists. Yes, that's a rhetorical question.

Then, I got to thinking: It might be interesting to see in which votes Sensenbrenner and Green SIDED with the organization, and in which votes Baldwin and Moore, Feingold and Kohl did not. So here they are (the semantics are the group's own. They use semantics to shape issues the way they want them seen as, I might note, I did above by labeling Green pro-defense):

SIDED WITH GROUP

• Sensenbrenner
• Stop all payments to UN (peace group wanted this to fail; he opposed it)
• Ban on US paying dues to UN (ditto)
• Military budget, including support for global arms trade (ditto)
• Ban funds for torture (both supported)
• Declaration against torture (both supported)
• No supplemental funds for Iraq embassy (both supported)
• To ban Halliburton's "sweetheart deals" by competitive bidding on Iraqi oil projects (both supported)
• Green
• Punish votes against US in UN (both opposed)
• Ban Funds for torture (both supported)
• Stop all payments to UN (both opposed)
• Declaration against torture (both supported)
• No supplemental funds for Iraq embassy (both supported)
• Halliburton competitive bidding (both supported)
• Ban on US paying dues to UN (both opposed)
• Military budget, including support for global arms trade (both opposed)

OPPOSED GROUP

• Moore
• Arbitrary limits on UN dues (she supported it; the group wanted it to fail)
• Baldwin
• Expression of continued moral support for Iraq war (she supported, the group opposed)
• Resolution praising Iraq war and linking it to war on terror (she supported, group opposed)
• First supplemental fundings for Iraq war (she supported, group opposed)
• Funding for war on terror (she supported, group opposed)
• Feingold
• Another blank check for Iraq war: joint version (he supported, group opposed)
• Negroponte confirmation (he supported, group opposed)
• Condoleezza Rice nomination (he supported, group opposed)
• Blank check funding for Iraq war (he supported, group opposed)
• Support continuing Iraq occupation (he supported, group opposed)
• First supplemental funding for Iraq war (he supported, group opposed)
• To commend nations that supported the Iraq war (he supported, group opposed)
• Levin Amendment - on pursuing UN inspections, resolutions before Iraq war (he opposed, group supported)
• Kohl
• Another blank check (supported, group opposed)
• Negroponte (supported, group opposed)
• Rice (supported, group opposed)
• Blank check funding (supported, group opposed)
• Block Iraq War Intelligence Review (supported, group opposed)
• Support continuing Iraq opposition (supported, group opposed)
• First supplemental funding for Iraq war (supported, group opposed)
• To commend nations that supported Iraq war (supported, group opposed)
• Iraq war authorization (supported, group opposed)
• Durbin amendment on imminent threat before Iraq war (he opposed, group supported)
• Byrd amendment opposing preemptive war (he opposed, group supported)
• Helms amendment opposing international law (he supported, group opposed)

Isn't it always interesting to go back in time and remember all the votes members of Congress took on issues relating to the Iraq war that are the exact polar opposite of the rhetoric the Democrats are now espousing against Bush and the Iraq war?

Here are the rankings: (100 percent is the most favorable to the group)

13% Green

89% Baldwin

52% Kind

92% Moore

12% Sensenbrenner

20% Petri

72% Obey

21% Ryan

62% Kohl

77% Feingold

Collective Responsibility

In its lead paint ruling Friday, the state Supreme Court split along the same lines as in the malpractice and police cases, although this time Pat Roggensack (elected) didn't participate. But the same four justices were in the majority - Butler (Doyle appointee), Abrahamson (Lucey appointee), Walsh Bradley (elected) and... Crooks (elected). The dissents by Wilcox and Prosser (both Thompson appointees) are very interesting. The court's finding of "collective responsibility" is novel nationwide in lead paint cases.

Excerpts: *my emphasis in bold

Jon Wilcox dissenting in the lead paint decision

The end result of the majority opinion is that the defendants, lead pigment manufacturers, can be held liable for a product they may or may not have produced, which may or may not have caused the plaintiff's injuries, based on conduct that may have occurred over 100 years ago when some of the defendants were not even part of the relevant market…The majority's decision renders Wisconsin the only state to apply some form of collective liability in lead paint suits under similar facts.

The majority relies on the testimony of two of the plaintiff's experts: Robert Dragen, an electron microscopist who analyzed paint samples from Thomas's residences; and Dr. Mushak, a toxicologist. First, Mr. Dragen did not "render any kind of opinion regarding any chemical compounds in the paints [he] analyzed[.]" Second, Mr. Dragen was not able to offer any opinions as to when the paint he analyzed was applied...Dr. Mushak's testimony is also highly problematic. Dr. Mushak's supplementary affidavit concluded, based on Mr. Dragen's analysis, that white lead carbonate was "the only likely" lead pigment Thomas ingested.

Finally, when pressed at his deposition, Dr. Mushak admitted that he could not say "whether or not any of the lead that was in Steven Thomas was caused by some other form of lead other than white lead carbonate[.]" As he explained: "All I can go with is if ninety-nine percent of typical interior paints were basic lead carbonates and Steven Thomas shows up eating interior lead paint . . . I would say that . . . he probably ingested basic lead carbonate."

Further, applying the Collins risk-contribution theory to a case such as this one——where the deficiencies in the plaintiff's proof are above and beyond the mere inability to identify the precise manufacturer of a generic, chemically identifiable, fungible product that was produced during a limited time frame——will have a profound effect on products liability law. Under the majority opinion, plaintiffs will be encouraged to sue entire industries rather than locate the defendant that manufactured the product that caused the injury. An individual defendant will have almost no ability to contest causation...

Prosser's dissent:

When the court issues its decision in this case, every person under the age of 20 who claims a lead paint injury in Wisconsin will have a cause of action in our courts. Every person in the United States who has a lead paint injury that could have come from a Wisconsin-based company and can survive the limitations periods in his own state may have a cause of action. Every municipality in this country that has a lead abatement program and can make a plausible argument that Wisconsin-made lead paint or white lead carbonate injured its residents may follow the City of Milwaukee and seek redress in this state. Wisconsin will be the mecca for lead paint suits. There is no statute of repose on products liability here, and this court has now created a remedy for lead paint poisoning so sweeping and draconian that it will be nearly impossible for paint companies to defend themselves or, frankly, for plaintiffs to lose… The majority opinion raises the very real possibility that innocent defendants will be held liable for wrongs they did not commit… The consequences of the majority opinion may be staggering for Wisconsin industry and commerce.

How Billy Lee Morford Almost Wasn't a Story

When I read this week that the state committee charged with finding housing for so-called sexual predators in Milwaukee County has submitted its final report without recommendations and basically tossed up its hands in frustration because it can't find anyplace that will accept them, I thought back to the day that sexual predator poster boy Billy Lee Morford almost wasn't a story.

Morford's case, of course, ratcheted up the community concern on the issue to the boiling point and it's been bubbling over ever since. He's been BIG news - on TV and in the paper, as the first sexually violent person under the Chapter 980 law to be granted supervised release in Milwaukee County.

So here's how he almost didn't get written about at all: I was sitting in the newsroom of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on a quiet Saturday in spring 2003 when a public official, who shall remain unnamed, called the newsroom extremely upset. He told me that Morford was going to be released into the community without timely notification to the public and the judge was refusing to publicly release the address. (TV didn't latch onto the Morford tale until it was in the paper).

But what really hacked off the public official was that he had called an editor (who shall remain unnamed) at the paper that morning and the editor sat on the tip. He didn't assign it to a reporter; he just ignored it.

I thought it had all the makings of a newsworthy story. Secrecy... an issue of public concern... and no one else had the story. So, I went over to a second editor and pitched it (the first editor had gone home for the day). It was 9 p.m. He didn't seem interested, either.

"Why don't you just brief it?" he suggested in a mellow tone. Briefs are stories that are about 5 paragraphs long and are buried inside the paper. It's where you put things that aren't a big deal.

I thought this was a big deal. I told him that I thought it not only was a story, but it was probably a front-page story, and it was probably going to blow up into a really big story. After thinking it over some more, Editor Two finally agreed and gave me the green light to pursue.

And the rest is history. Every time this issue blows up, which has occurred a lot since that first story in 2003, I think back to how Billy Lee Morford almost wasn't a story. If a tree falls in the forest and a reporter is not around to write about it, does it make a sound?

Some might argue that it would be better if Morford were not a story, such as the committee that has struggled to find placements for sexual predators, risking the very real chance that the entire law could be found unconstitutional (especially with the direction the state Supreme Court has been heading recently). I err on the side that the public had a right to know.

Letters to the Editor

Two more student letters to the editor from my summer Opinion Writing class at UW-Milwaukee have made it into the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel!

Look for Amanda Leisgang's letter Sunday.

Ashley Jansen's letter ran today.

Quick Thought

Scott Walker could have eliminated the whole Harley press mess by simply having his campaign pick up the lousy three thousand bucks at the outset...

Question of the Week

Why is state Supreme Court Justice N. Patrick Crooks becoming the David Souter of Wisconsin?

Malpractice Goofiness

Here's a Cliff Notes version of the bothersome things about the state Supreme Court's recent malpractice cap decision:

• The Court relies on the state Constitution, so as to avoid higher court review.
• The Court framed its decision to make it difficult for the Legislature to react. Thus, in two ways, the Court is trying to avoid the checks and balances our system normally allows.
• The Court relied on studies from out of state that the dissenting opinion said were selectively chosen. Studies that contradicted the Court’s decision were ignored.
• The Court basically conducted what a dissent called a "mini trial."
• The Court is, as dissenting Justice David Prosser wrote, acting as a “super Legislature.” The state doesn’t need two Legislatures.
• The decision diverged from longstanding Court precedent by passing a tougher level of scrutiny of Legislative action than before, changing the standard in place for 30 years. Prosser warns that this set the stage for the Court to more readily invalidate future Legislative action just because it doesn’t like it
• The Court’s new standard is confusing in the decision
• The main rationale the Court gives for nullifying the cap – that it disproportionately affects the most seriously injured – could apply to any cap
• The Court uses several decade old figures in coming to its conclusion
• The majority ignores evidence that counters its findings such as a non partisan Legislative Audit Bureau report
• The majority makes incorrect statements about studies and data
• Caps are a lot lower for people injured in other ways, such as in motor vehicle accidents
• The system allowed for guaranteed payment to the victim due to the caps and stabilized the system, which the majority disregards
• Concurring justices seemed to say a higher cap might pass muster, yet they joined in the majority ruling that used logic that would seemingly nullify all caps, which is inconsistent
• The majority argues that changing times could justify changing the constitutionality of a statute - a disturbing argument
• The decision gives no weight to the findings of the Legislature, even though justices are supposed to give it great weight
• The Court has done similar things in other recent rulings, such as the ruling limiting use of police show-up identifications, in which it also relied on selective social science studies and sought to avoid higher court review. In that decision, the court also ruled in a counter manner to the US Supreme Court and diverged from years of precedent of NOT interpreting the state and federal constitutions in a different manner

Republican Gubernatorial candidate Mark Green tells it like it is in a well-stated release.

And so does Democratic Legislator Sheldon Wasserman, as criticism erupts that is bipartisan. See his release here.

Quick analysis: The balance of power on the Court shifted with the departure of Diane Sykes to the federal bench, illustrating why Wisconsin Senators Kohl and Feingold were so eager to grease her way through to nomination (they normally try to block such reliable Conservatives). They had leaped to praise Sykes as she fell under attack by none other than.... Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (of Guantanamo is similar to Nazis and Pol Pot, etc. etc. fame). I am not saying that Feingold and Kohl should not have supported Sykes, I am just saying their motive for doing so is pretty transparent. Doyle's subsequent appointment of Liberal Louis Butler shifted the balance on the Court. Although in this decision, and the one on police, it is interesting to note that Conservative Justice N. Patrick Crooks sided with the Majorities. Liberals (Abrahamson, Walsh Bradley, and Butler) are not technically the majority unless a Conservative Justice switches over (Prosser, Roggensack, Wilcox.... or Crooks).

The Other Harley Ride

Student Work

Check out the blog on Milwaukee by my former UWM student Erin Leffelman, sponsored by VISIT Milwaukee. It's a round-up of Milwaukee life and goings-on through the eyes of a 20-something. I helped get her this gig and I'm thrilled by how it's turned out.

Read an article on her endeavor.

Check out the blog.

Also, as a requirement for my summer opinion writing class at UWM, students had to submit letters to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One, by student Talia Stone, was just published yesterday. Read it here.

The Ward Churchill Hall of Fame

A new inductee to the Ward Churchill Hall of Fame... Dr. Kaukab Siddique, a professor of English and journalism at Pennsylvania's Lincoln University. He is editor of the New Trend magazine, which argues that the Holocaust didn't happen but rather was a "a billion-dollar 'cash cow' for Jews." He also has written in support of armed jihad, saying it's allowed in the following circumstances: "self-defense, fighting for the honor of women, fighting in defense of Muslim lands and fighting against cultural imperialism."

The American Association of University Professors has defended Siddique.

A Terrorist By Any Other Name...

The BBC "grapples" with whether to call the London bombers terrorists...and decides on "bombers" and "militants." Read this and this.

Also the UK Sun documents incidents of Islamic terror around the globe... and leaves out suicide bombings in Israel. See their map.

But they call terrorists terrorists.

Ties?

UWM Prof Paul Brewer points out some Conservative ties to the Center for Media and Public Affairs. Check it out to judge for yourself. BTW he's referring to another Media Matters. ;-)

How Many More?

Milwaukee Ald. Robert Donovan indicted. Kudos are in order for Journal Sentinel reporter Georgia Pabst, who reported on the underlying essence that drove the charges way back in 2002. Georgia also broke the Rosa Cameron scandal.

Murphy on JS

An interesting column by Bruce Murphy on the Journal Sentinel's sewage coverage.

Dresang - "outstate media source only?"

On July 5, the blog Boots and Sabers broke the same revelation about media source Dennis Dresang that the Journal Sentinel's Spivak and Bice reported on July 11.

Wrote Boots & Sabers July 5:

On a side note, I just love the “expert” that the reporter drug up: “I think it’s ironic that Scott Walker, who rode into office on a pension ethics scandal … is now doing the same kind of thing as he tries to run for governor,” said Dennis Dresang, professor of political science and public affairs at the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dennis Dresang is a raving activist liberal who has contributed money to both Governor Jim Doyle and Chuck Chvala. He is hardly an objective observer.

Wrote Spivak & Bice July 11:

No one seemed as outraged by GOP gubernatorial candidate and County Executive Scott Walker's statewide Harley ride last week than University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Dennis Dresang. Dresang blasted Walker's second-annual "Executive's Ride" as pure politics and ripped the Republican's giveaway of freebies to outstate media. "The fact that this is a tour for a gubernatorial candidate who is using his county position and county money to make the tour and providing $500 worth of gifts to the media - it just doesn't look right," he said. What the outstate media didn't say, however, is that Dresang is a frequent, though small, contributor to various Democrats, including Gov. Jim Doyle, the guy Walker hopes to unseat. According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's Web site, he has given $350 to Doyle since 1997, including $150 during his 2002 bid for the state's top office. Not big bucks, but as Dresang might say, it just doesn't look right.

Actually, Dresang is quoted A LOT in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel too as a "neutral expert" in news stories (and that's the key - he's presented as a neutral expert in news stories; he's not writing opinion columns) on political issues. Put his name in keyword search on jsonline and you will see what I mean.

For example, in October 2002, Dresang was quoted in a story on a new Republican TV ad that attempted to link Doyle to Chvala. It said: "Dresang and Holbrook (another prof), in separate interviews, said McCallum's new ad trying to link Chvala with Doyle was inaccurate."

"It crosses the line," Dresang said. "There is absolutely no link between the criminal complaint filed against Chvala and Jim Doyle."

In Sept. 2002, Dresang gave $100 to Doyle.

In fairness, there are also articles in which Dresang is somewhat critical of Doyle or is providing politically neutral analysis. But the JS might have mentioned in its slam of "outstate media" that the paper uses Dresang as a neutral political expert in news stories all the time too.

No Honeymoon for Bush

A new study by the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs found:

• 2/3 of Bush's nightly network news coverage was negative in the first 100 days of his second term. But that was less than his 71 percent negativity rating of four years ago. Still, it was more negative than Clinton received in 1993 (59% negative)
• NBC's coverage was most favorable to Bush - 57% negative
• ABC's coverage was most critical of Bush - 78% negative
• CBS was in the middle - 71% negative
• Coverage of Bush was down overall - there were only 250 stories compared to 619 during his first Honeymoon
• Bush's foreign policies were treated less negatively than his domestic policies - overall. But the War in Iraq and Social Security received overwhelmingly negative coverage (71% and 78% negative, respectively)

Coders analyzed all on-air comments by reporters and sources, excluding political party representatives.

In May, the same organization found that the media's use of anonymous sources declined 33% between Ronald Reagan's Administration and the first year of George W. Bush's first term.

Terrorism and the Media

"Troubling questions lurk: Does terrorism exist without the media? If terrorism is directed more at the audience than at its victims, shouldn't television journalists stop giving terrorists the forum they covet? Can they?" Read more.

When There's Blood in the Water...

Read today's presidential press bashing.... er briefing. What part of "we are not commenting on a pending investigation" does the press corps not understand?

I can understand why the White House doesn't want to comment on or prejudge or influence the Rove situation until the investigation is concluded. At the same time, if Rove had been upfront about talking to Cooper from the outset (and if the White House had too), there wouldn't have been half as much fuel for this story.

The 100 People Who Are Screwing Up Wisconsin

I just started reading Bernard Goldberg's controversial new book, 100 People Who Are Screwing up America. And it got me thinking: Who are the 100 People Who Are Screwing Up Wisconsin?

For starters, I realized, it's impossible to come up with 100 People. We are a celebrity-starved state. Where are our Streisands and Michael Moores? People are pretty low key in Wisconsin overall. They don't say much outrageous. We might be able to come up with 10-15, max. We not only lack large numbers of people in the public eye who could theoretically qualify (especially outside politics) but we also lack colorful characters in this state. Quite honestly, it's easier to come up with 100 People Who Are Helping Wisconsin. But that's less interesting. So I started coming up with the Screwing-Up List anyway.

Few would disagree with including Michael McGee Jr. on such a list. His political broadsides usually comically miss the mark, his rhetoric is stuck somewhere in the 1960s, and he seems to be gunning for division and racial tension. I'd put Madison talkshow host John Sylvester on the list too, unless he can explain how likening Condoleezza Rice to Aunt Jemima made society better. I'd put Lee Holloway on there because he's stubbornly remaining as County Board Chairman despite all the ethical complaints against him. There might be some votes for Ahman Green, as a representative of screwed-up Sports Stars who ruin our children's notions of role models. Few would disagree with the disgraced politicians convicted of felonies (such as Paul Henningsen and Jeff Pawlinski). We'll just list them as a group for ruining our state's clean government image. A special award goes to those who got their felonies for scamming the poor.

After that point, I realized that pretty much every possible choice was overtly partisan - one person's screw-off is another's hero. For example, I am sure Liberals would put Mark Belling and Charlie Sykes on such a list and I am equally sure Conservatives would put Eugene Kane on it.

Liberals would probably pick John Gard and the Republican Leadership in the state Legislature for the socially Conservative and anti-tax measures they've pushed through and for not rolling over/compromising with Gov. Doyle. They might pick Lobbyists in general for infecting the system with money and influence. They probably don't like Sheriff David Clarke for his strongly worded attacks on the status quo.

Conservatives would likely nominate JS Editorial Board Chief O. Ricardo Pimentel, for pushing the paper's editorial page so far out of the mainstream that it sometimes seems Marxist. Likewise, Conservatives are probably bothered by the state caucus investigation spearheaded by Dane County DA Brian Blanchard. They are also bothered, I am sure, by what they see as a concerted lack of leadership and new ideas from Milwaukee's Democratic Legislative delegation. And Conservatives would likely nominate Gov. Doyle for standing in the way of what they see as common-sense provisions supported by Wisconsinites, like Photo ID for voting. They'd also give a nod most likely to extremely Liberal Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson and ultra Liberal Senator Russ Feingold. They'd also probably list WEAC leaders.

From here on out, I think I'll throw it open to the audience. Send me an email at jessbucher@sbcglobal.net with your top choices for the People Who Are Screwing Up Wisconsin and the reasons why. If I get any interesting ones, I'll publish them, and I won't use your names.

Lottery Story

Shocking correction today on the story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that reported poor people win less money in the lottery. Read the story here.

What this story/correction underscores is the almost complete lack of understanding that most reporters have of statistics. More reporters should get master's degrees. I got mine at UWM and the journalism program there is very heavily focused on research training. I took courses such as quantitative statistics. What I learned quickly is that many journalism investigative stories report correlations or conclusions that would never withstand scientific rigor. For example, in research, there is a very specific statistical threshhold by which a correlation can be considered statistically significant - or not. A hypothesis is also not considered valid if the cause does not precede the effect, the sample is too small or skewed, or there is an alternate hypothesis to explain the phenomenon. How many reporters have drawn sweeping conclusions in their stories based on a non-random sample of a couple people they spoke to on a street corner? How many times have reporters written findings with a certain slant, ditching the alternate hypothesis to the bottom of the stories?

More reporters should take these classes.

Read the original posting on the Marquette Warrior blog that unraveled the lottery story here.

Editing

Now this is interesting. In an earlier posting, I quoted an AP story on an exchange between a reporter and the White House Press Secretary in the Karl Rove situation. The story said:

"Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" a reporter (NBC's David Gregory) asked McClellan.

"This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation," McClellan replied.

Sounds sort of nefarious. But this, according to the official White House transcript, is the unedited exchange and it sounds a lot different:

Q Scott, can I ask you this; did Karl Rove commit a crime?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, David, this is a question relating to an ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to the investigation. And I don't think you should read anything into it other than we're going to continue not to comment on it while it's ongoing."

Kind of has a different tenor, huh? One person's hard-charging, tough-as-nails reporter is another's biased jerk. You decide. It continued:

Q Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003 when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliott Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this" -- do you stand by that statement?

MR. McCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time, as well.

Q Scott, I mean, just -- I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?

MR. McCLELLAN: And again, David, I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said, and I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation --

Q Why are you choosing when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MR. McCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish --

Q No, you're not finishing -- you're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke out about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation? Was he involved, or was he not? Because, contrary to what you told the American people, he did, indeed, talk about his wife, didn't he?

MR. McCLELLAN: David, there will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

Q Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question...

To read the entire sausage-making press conference experience, you can access the full transcripts on Nahal Toosi's interesting JS blog. Of course, last week the suddenly vigorous press corps was strangely mum on the same topic (at least according to a notoriously biased source; but it's still an interesting posting). Charlie Sykes also has an interesting link to a site that shows the media's press conference priorities.

The Prince of Darkness

A friend encouraged me to write more specifically about the Prince of Darkness, aka Bob Novak. You might have noticed that I have written a couple snide postings on him. Here's the tale:

In college I worked as an intern at CNN's Washington D.C. Bureau. For part of the time, I was in the newsroom. That was a great experience. I was there during the Soviet Coup. I got to mingle with Bernard Shaw and other people like that and witness firsthand how the newsroom operated. It seemed really professional.

For the other part of the time, I was an intern for the television shows International Correspondents and the Capital Gang. I spent most of my time on the Capital Gang. If you haven't seen it (I believe it just was cancelled last month or so), it's sort of like the Belling and Sykes TV shows or the McLaughlin Group. The panelists were Mark Shields, Al Hunt, Pat Buchanan and... Bob Novak.

Pat Buchanan, although known for political extremism, was the least extreme, at least personality-wise. In fact, he was charming and beloved on the shows by producers, guests, and interns. That's because he was always friendly, always kind, and always well-behaved. Honestly, he was a gentleman. Years later, my uncle ran into him on a plane and he actually remembered my name. He has a mind like a trap; he's very intelligent. Mark Shields was a cuddly teddy bear type of a guy. Always nice to people and made no waves. But Al Hunt and Bob Novak were like little obnoxious children tossing baby food from their high chairs. Al Hunt, in particular, drove the producer crazy with his petulant temper tantrums that would come out of the blue. Bob Novak, when he wasn't zipping around in his Corvette, was no better. On one occasion, I walked into his office and he shouted something like, "the interns here are a bunch of morons" and threw a bunch of papers across his desk in my direction. I didn't even know what he was talking about or what I'd walked into. He was just a nasty, nasty guy with a huge ego and terrible interpersonal skills.

My job on the show was to prepare research for the hosts and do the lights on the set and what they call the "supers" - the little names on the screen. Incidentally, when I returned from DC, the next internship I took was at the Milwaukee Sentinel. I had been torn between print and broadcast media, but after CNN, I decided broadcast wasn't for me. Frankly, too many of the people in the national elite broadcast media are a bunch of self-serving, star-tripping jerks. It didn't have much to do with journalism and I loved to write.

In contrast, local TV reporters are usually a lot nicer than print reporters in Milwaukee. That's just the truth. Print reporters are a defensive, gossipy lot. Not exclusively but more so than TV. I don't think I've ever run into a TV reporter in Milwaukee who wasn't nice. Some of them aren't the brightest crayons in the box (although others are very smart) but they are all nice in my personal experience.

My other experience with the national broadcast media came when I was hired as an intern for CBS This Morning at the Republican National Convention in 1992. I picked that convention because I had relatives in Houston and the network didn't give us lodging. I got to hobnob at parties with Connie Chung and Dan Rather, who were both quite charming. My job involved driving dignitaries on a golf cart from their cars to the set, and entertaining them in the green room. George W. Bush was in the green room one day with his sister, Doro. He was very pleasant but that's all I remember about him because he wasn't even in politics then. I drove Jerry Falwell on a golf cart one day (I swear to God). All I could do was pray I wouldn't tip it over. I also drove a prominent Wisconsin pol (who shall remain unnamed) to the green room. He didn't know I was from Wisconsin. To him, I was just some college kid in Texas. Anyway, he started talking with his aide about the partying they did with blonde strippers the night before. I'll never forget it. He said of another major pol, "Did he get with her too?" I told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's political reporter about it but he didn't follow up. What I remember him saying was: "What would be my lead be?"

My final experience with the national broadcast media has come in covering major stories. The worst is when they parachute into local stories and trample over all your sources with their offers of TV appearances and sometimes money.They will call and just expect you to give them sources and information because of what show they are working on. When I say they call, I mean the producers, because the "stars" don't do any of the actual reporting in national TV. When I went to New York for the anniversary of Sept. 11, I had to deal with the national jerks en masse. We ran into Chelsea Clinton in the elevator and one of them told her she "was a lot prettier in person," which is hardly a compliment. We were all on the roof of a building overlooking Ground Zero for the main ceremony and the broadcast jerks had taken up every spot at the railing with their generators and equipment and producers. I finally found a spot next to a generator that wasn't in the way of anyone else. But a broadcast producer started screaming at me that this was her spot. I wasn't in her way at all. I stood my ground for awhile but she was so incredibly nasty that I just decided to move on. That's what they are like in national TV news.

Gazillion Dollars

Now that the Mark Green campaign has announced it has a gazillion dollars on hand - well, OK, $1.7 million, but that's a gazillion in campaign primary dollars this early out - I am even more sure the Dems are making a major strategic error by focusing all their fire on Scott Walker. The guy with all the dough is getting all the cover as Walker draws all the enemy fire. That's the charm of having two major Republican candidates who are refraining, thus far, from duking it out with one another.

Boulevard Ensemble - Auditions Available

My brother-in-law, Mark Bucher, runs the respected Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theater in Bayview. They are looking for staffers and actors/actresses. I do everything I can to help this little storefront theater because it's really a good one. The plays are very professional and performed in an interesting setting. It's also a project of the heart. Mark and Paul's mother, Anne (the namesake of our baby daughter), used to be a fixture at this theater, selling brownies at the front door. She raised six boys on Milwaukee's South Side, including Mark and Paul, as a single mother.

The Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theatre

Location: 2252 South Kinnickinnic Milwaukee, WI 53207

Phone: 414.744.5757(Press # To Escape Outgoing Message)

Contact: Mark Bucher Executive/Artistic Director mailto:Directormbucher@juno.com

The Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theatre, Milwaukee’s premiere studio theatre located at 2252 South Kinnickinnic, will audition performers for its 20th Anniversary Season on Sunday, July 17th from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. and Monday, July 18th from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m.

Artistic Director Mark Bucher is seeking a wide range of actors, actresses, and singers for Boulevard’s September-October production of Irving Berlin’s 1940 musical LOUISIANA PURCHASE as well as performers for the March-April production of Shakespeare’s classic comedy A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. Interested individuals can contact Boulevard Ensemble by calling 414.744.5757.

Singers, actors and dancers auditioning for LOUISIANA PURCHASE should present one prepared song that showcases their musical ability and one comic monologue (not exceeding two minutes). Artists auditioning for MIDSUMMER should prepare one Shakespearean monologue not exceeding two minutes in duration. Auditions are scheduled in ten-minute increments and are by appointment only. LOUISIANA PURCHASE plays five weeks and opens Thursday, September 22 and closes Sunday, October 23. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM plays six weeks and opens Thursday, March 16 and closes Sunday, April 23. Performances for both run Thursdays through Saturdays (evening shows) and Sunday matinees.

All those interested in auditioning are to bring a resume/headshot and personal calendars to completely answer questions about upcoming schedules and conflicts with production schedules. Minorities are encouraged to audition. Artists appearing with the Boulevard Ensemble receive a modest stipend.

Staff positions available: The Boulevard is seeking the following positions for its 2005-2006 season: Production Stage Manager (August, 2005-May, 2006), Lighting Designer (August, 2005-May, 2006), and Stage Managers (Sept.-Oct., Dec.-Jan., and Jan.-Feb.). Individuals should send letters of interest and resumes to: The Boulevard Ensemble, P.O. Box 238, Milwaukee, WI 53201. For further information on the Boulevard Ensemble’s 20th Anniversary Season, the July auditions or position opportunities, please call the Boulevard’s 24-hour ticket line at 414.744.5757.********

Did Cooper "Burn" Karl Rove?

Rove's lawyer says Cooper called Rove - not the other way around - for a story on welfare reform. Among other claims. An interesting take on the current fury to hang Rove.

Questionable

So I was reading my latest Time Magazine last night and I ran across this passage in a story on the Plame case:

"(Time Magazine's Matthew) Cooper was prepared to go to jail, but just before he was set to face the judge, his source released him from his pledge of confidentiality, freeing him to testify before the grand jury. And who was Cooper's source? A number of news organizations named Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political adviser. Time's editors have decided not to reveal the source at this time."

Huh? They just DID.

Granted, this is now moot as it's since been confirmed beyond any doubt that Rove spoke to Cooper. But it's really questionable for a news organization to decide not to reveal the source based on its own sources (either because they're shaky or the magazine doesn't think it's fair to release the name or some other undisclosed reason) and then to release the name anyway - in the same paragraph no less! - based on the sources of other news organizations (which might be just as shaky but there's no way for Time to know because it doesn't know who their sources are).

This just struck me as wrong. Either name him based on your own sources or don't name him but don't try to have it both ways.

Weird comment

The plot thickens in the Plame case. A very weird response from the White House press secretary in this exchange, reported by the AP:

"Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" a reporter asked McClellan.

"This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation," McClellan replied.

That's what you call answering a question without answering a question.

My husband and I recently met Rove (see above). In person, he is a powerful speaker and very charming. I will be interested to see how this plays out. I hope the answer to the question above is no. Rove's lawyer says he didn't disclose Plame's name. Read the latest story. Emails document conversations Rove had with Time Mag's Matthew Cooper. This case is getting weirder by the minute.

One More Time

My head is spinning from James Wigderson's latest mammoth nearly 1,500 word posting. I will keep my posting brief. And this will be the last one on this now tired topic:

• My UW System employment was disclosed on Sykes numerous times because my title was given to viewers. You falsely implied but didn't directly state in the first posting that it wasn't clear. It was.
• You confuse length with thin skin. I simply like to make my side known when misconstrued.
• If I could be bought I would have stayed at the Journal Sentinel for a higher salary or gone into TV or PR. My point was that I can't support the private school credit at the same time public education is losing out. It seems unfair in juxtaposition and has nothing to do with $ to me but rather is a matter of fairness. In a different budget climate, or if public education also had been spared, I could support the tax credit. I pointed out I benefit from the tax credit only because you made such a big deal out of the fact I am affected financially by the pension hit. I could care less about the couple hundred bucks either way - but I do care about the principle.
• You don't deal with the merits of my argument on the unfairness of the Legislative action regarding state workers' salaries. The facts are on my side.
• I am still bothered that Sen. Reynolds used his clout to push through the tax credit but did nothing to help state workers who were being clobbered financially at the same time. I am not the Leggie with the power to make this stuff law, which is a really big distinction.
• If you want to know where my husband stands, ask him.
• Thanks for the nice comments on my blog. I like yours too. I forgot about the UWM Times thing but it's coming back now. No hard feelings.

<400 words :-)

Calling It Like It Is

A former associate editor of the Wisconsin State Journal calls it like it is.

Litmus Tests

• Why is George W. Bush running around like a chicken with his head cut off underscoring, under constant media pressure and questioning, that he doesn't have a "litmus test" on Supreme Court nominees when Democratic leaders in Congress are not being pressured to say they don't have a litmus test on Supreme Court nominees? (The AP reported that Bush, in Copenhagen last week, was pressed on this question and said, "he would have no 'litmus test' that disqualifies candidates because of their opinions...")

• Bush was pushed on the same question before the 2004 election and said in the third debate he wouldn't have a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees. In contrast, John Kerry said he would have a litmus test - he'd appoint justices who would uphold Roe v. Wade.
• Clinton had a litmus test. Bill Moyers asked Clinton during a July, 1992 interview, "Will you see to it that if you're elected, that fifth judge, your first appointee, will be a strong supporter of Roe?" Answered Clinton, '"Yes." Clinton made no apologies for picking justices who, it was clear, would support abortion. Ruth Bader Ginsburg once equated restrictions on abortion to sexual discrimination and Stephen Breyer (confirmation vote 87-9) made previous rulings that indicated his preference too. But both were confirmed without the nasty, nuclear battles people are predicting now if Bush dares to have a "litmus test."
• Consider this data from a conservative columnist: "In 1994, the Media Research Center’s Nexis research of the terms 'litmus test' with 'Supreme Court' in the three news magazines, as well as the Washington Post and New York Times, was eye-opening: 111 uses from 1987-1992, but only ten uses in Clinton’s time up to the Breyer confirmation process. Most of the disparity came from the newspapers: 54 to 3 in the Post, 44 to 5 in the Times. Translation: During the Reagan-Bush years, there was a defined ideological standard to be met by nominees. In the Clinton era, there was apparently no ideology to consider. " It would be fascinating to do a similar search now. See a Conservative report on this double standard.
• Why don't we all stop pretending that a "litmus test" means anything but a euphemism for abortion and just call it like it is?

• Why is the conventional wisdom that Bush should appoint a "moderate" when Clinton was able to easily push through the far-from-moderate former ACLU counsel Ruth Bader Ginsburg (at a vote of 96-3)?
• Why are the media characterizing any judge who is against abortion as an extremist and any judge who is for abortion as moderate?

• Why are the media continually labeling Sandra Day O'Connor as a moderate? On the major hot-button issues (except for the presidential election), she tacked left by the end of her service on the Court.

• When reporting on how vicious prior confirmation battles have become, why don't the media point out that this only occurs with Conservative nominees?

It's all about framing the debate. I am not saying I like litmus tests or that Supreme Court nominees should have them. Far from it. But if we are going to hound one politician to not have a litmus test, we should do it for one and all. And, we should stop framing one side of the debate as "moderate" and the other as "extreme" when both simply represent different sides of the debate.

We're Not Afraid

A new Web Site with a message of global unity, defiance, and determination. It's called We're Not Afraid.

Revolutionary? Try TERRORIST

So if al-Zarqawi or one of his henchmen decide to run for president of a Middle Eastern country in 25 years, will the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board argue that the past doesn't matter?

In a bizarre editorial, the board argues it doesn't matter if Iran's president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was part of the 1979 taking of American hostages in Iran, as some hostages have maintained.

The board then says of Iran: "It is a nation of 68 million people and the seat of an ancient civilization, is a major oil producer, holds a pivotal geographic position in the Middle East (it borders, among other important countries, Iraq), has long supported the Hezbollah terror group and may be secretly attempting to build nuclear weapons. For these and several other reasons, its relations with the U.S. and other countries are extremely important."

Right. So that's why it matters if a former hostage-taker is president of said country.

The board also called the 1979 hostage taking a "cruel and criminal act."

Right. So that's why it matters if a former hostage-taker is president of said country.

The editorial board says what matters is not what Ahmadinejad did as a young man but what kind of a man he is now. As if the things he did as a young man provide no clues to the kind of man he is today... The things he did in his past are probably the past indicator of what he's all about now. Where else are we to look for evidence?

Let's not forget that eight American servicemen were killed in an aborted attempt to free the hostages. If the new Iranian president really was part of the hostage-taking (and I'm not convinced by the pictures), their blood is partly on his hands.

How Has it Come to This?

How Scott Walker can keep his Mojo

My advice to Scott Walker: Stay on the offensive.

Campaigns have peaks and valleys. Since the state Convention, Scott’s appeared at times to be in a bit of a valley. That's OK; these things are cyclical and the election's a long way away. Good news for the Walker campaign: They’ve got a strategic position in SE Wisconsin that is clearly striking real fear in the Doyle campaign.

At a Wispolitics luncheon in June, Walker called himself the underdog. Personally, I think both Walker and Mark Green are equally impressive candidates. But Walker’s concession surprised me a lot because it was an about-face from his previous positioning on the political stump.

Before that point, Walker had consistently touted himself as the strategic frontrunner. The basic argument: Doyle won with only 45% of the vote statewide and he needed 57% percentage of the Milwaukee County votes to do it. Thus, if the Republican candidate can cut into Doyle’s base in Milwaukee County, Doyle will lose. Walker is the candidate best positioned in Milwaukee County. He broke – by far - the magic threshold in Milwaukee County for a Republican of 40% (last accomplished by Tommy), receiving 58% of the vote in the county exec race, and he showed that a Republican can win in Milwaukee County. He’s got exceedingly high name recognition in the state’s population base of the 4-county metro Milwaukee area, from which 43% of the GOP primary vote derives.

But Walker soon found himself on the defensive again over financial problems at the Milwaukee County Museum. It wasn’t his fault but it was bad press. Now, he’s been on the receiving end of a seemingly tireless crusade by several state newspapers and Democratic opinion makers determined to undermine his candidacy, lately focusing on his statewide Harley ride to promote Milwaukee tourism.

To act like Walker is the only politician who ever used his job as a platform both to help his community and – at the same time – reap positive press for a campaign is completely disingenuous at best. Gov. Doyle’s been quite prolific himself running around the state on the taxpayers' dime. You can’t tell me Doyle doesn’t calculate whether showing up for breakfast at an Eau Claire elementary school or visiting a fish hatchery during an - as his Web site puts it - “Up North tour" isn’t partly about jacking up positive press for his re-election. And then there was Doyle’s six-day promotion mission to Mexico, where he – you guessed it – visited a Harley-Davidson dealership and touted Harley as a “signature product” for Wisconsin. So let me get this straight: It’s OK for Doyle to trek to Mexico to tout Harley but it’s not OK for Walker to trek around the state to tout Harley? Last time I looked, Harleys were manufactured on Walker’s home turf. In 2003, Doyle traveled to Milwaukee and rode in the big Harley centennial parade. No, none of that garnered the governor any positive press that might – God forbid – have helped his campaign.

The governor’s wife also has quite a prolific schedule. I’m not criticizing their schedules. I'm just saying Scott Walker's Harley ride helped Milwaukee as much as Governor Doyle opening a bridge in La Crosse or breaking ground at Pabst Farms helped Wisconsin. I’m pointing out that this is how the game works. Both Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum did Harley rides around the state. It’s not even Walker’s first Harley ride. No one was outraged the first time he rode around the state. And he cleared the ride with the ethics board.

On the Harley ride, the Green Bay Press Gazette basically baited Walker into responding to questions about his campaign and then attacked him for responding to questions about his campaign. The paper wrote: “During his stop in Green Bay, Walker told a Press-Gazette reporter that he was there to promote Milwaukee and not to comment on his candidacy for governor. After clarifying his position, he then answered questions about the gubernatorial campaign."

“My reputation here has been that I don’t hide behind unanswered questions,” Walker said. “When people ask questions, I give them answers. But that’s a double-edged sword because if I don’t respond, then I get beat up in the paper for not answering all the questions.”

So, the press fires questions about the campaign at Walker and then attacks him for making the tour a "campaign event." If the standard, per Jay Heck of Common Cause in the newspaper, is whether the Harley ride had any potential benefit to Walker’s campaign, then he might as well put duct tape over his mouth and say and do nothing as county executive for the next year and a half because everything he does potentially benefits his campaign. The real question is: Was there any benefit to Milwaukee? And did the benefit justify the cost (less than $3,000)? And why is the press singling out Walker's ride?

Granted, Walker is not a statewide politician, so he has to work harder to justify the benefit to Milwaukee from a statewide tour. But I’m from northern Wisconsin and I can tell you firsthand that Milwaukee doesn’t have a great reputation beyond, say, the outer borders of Milwaukee. People don’t know how much progress we’ve made down here (Calatrava, downtown condo development, the convention center) and, when they travel or decide where to go to college, in my neck of the woods they usually headed over to Minneapolis/St. Paul (I grew up in Ladysmith, a northwestern Wisconsin town of about 3,000). Milwaukee is that distant place with a lot of crime. Oh, and it has the Brewers. So you can justify Walker’s Harley ride. (Although you can’t justify the media outlets’ decisions to accept free tickets while covering his campaign. But why is the focus on his ethics instead of the media’s ethics? He didn’t spend government money on the tickets. The real ethical issue involves the media outlets who took them).

Democrats might consider the boomerang effect: Walker’s been drawing all the fire on the battlefield, giving cover to the other powerful Republican candidate Mark Green, who’s been sailing through without much scrutiny. And that helps Green, which in the end would only hurt Doyle.

My advice to Walker, for what it's worth: Concede nothing. You’re not the underdog: You’re the strategic frontrunner. That was a powerful message. Stay on it and run with it over and over again so it breaks through the media clutter. But I figure you already understand the game: You don't reach the primary audience through the Cap Times anyway because GOP primary voters are so disenchanted with the MSM. No, you reach them with your message through the Web, direct mail, talk radio, grassroots organizing, so while you might SEEM like you're in a valley, you're probably not where it matters. Turn the media attacks into a positive: They drive up name recognition and they demonstrate you’re not the underdog: You’re the threat. Because you’re the strategic frontrunner. As for the museum controversy – people will forget about that by the time the race rolls around but take every chance to reform it so the museum ship is standing right side up come November 2006 (and because it's the right thing to do). Time is on your side. But stop saying you’re the underdog. As far as money goes (because there’s no way you caught up to Green’s $1.3 million head start by June 30), remember how much all that free Milwaukee media is worth. You’re a constant presence in the state’s most expensive media market and you get it for free. That’s worth a heckuva lot more than a couple stories from your Harley ride anyway. Whether the stories are negative or positive doesn't matter that much really – people forget the spin once they're in the ballot box for the most part. They just remember your name. Oh, the voters also don’t give a rat’s )(@&% that Mike D’Amato wants you to spend, spend, spend or that the GB Press Gazette is ticked off because you tossed a bunch of freebies to reporters. They are just happy you aren’t raising their taxes come December. Those tax bills landing in their mailboxes will be more advantageous to your campaign than all the Harley Rides combined.

Note to blogger James Wigderson

I wouldn't oppose tax credits for private education or home schooling per se - in a different context - indeed, my children attend/have attended Catholic schools, so I also benefit from the tax credit that Tom Reynolds pushed too, which you don't mention. In general, I support private education and homeschooling. All four of the schoolage children in the Bucher household have attended/are attending Catholic schools. Both my husband and I also attended Catholic schools growing up. We are both supporters of private education by our actions in our own family and we are respectful of those who choose that course.

But, in context, what bothered me about this credit was the way in which it was passed: in the middle of the night, pushed by a legislator with a vested interest, and AT THE SAME TIME that the Legislature slammed public education/state workers. I do not think that was fair. How can the Legislature justify giving this tax credit for private education while at the same time gutting public education? In a different budget time, I would advocate for the tax credit, but if the situation is so dire we have to slam public workers for the third year in a row, how can we find the $15 mil? The situation for public workers seemed more dire, since they have been living under basically no increase in compensation for the third straight year and counting. That's why I made those topics my winner and loser in juxtaposition. If the slam on public education hadn't occurred at the same time, I wouldn't have opposed the private school tax credit.

Yep, I'm hurt financially by the UW System pension hit too, although far less than others in the UW System because I just started working there in 2004. But, as mentioned, I'm HELPED by the private school tax credit too, so there you have it.

If you read my column on wisopinion, I make the fact that I am financially harmed by the UW System cut really clear. It was also clear on Sykes because I stated that UW SYSTEM faculty and academic staff were affected by the budget move, and MY TITLE AS A UW-MILWAUKEE LECTURER IS REPEATEDLY DISPLAYED on the screen throughout the show. So, it's obvious to the viewers that it affects me. The difference is that I was not a legislator passing the provision; I am a commentator reacting to it. Who was also defending public education on the Legislative floor? Sen. Reynolds has every right to champion a measure that he personally benefits from, but others have a right to point it out when at the same time a similar measure for education is passed that harms others. This isn't personal; generally, I like Tom Reynolds and what he stands for.

It's easy to deride UW System faculty and academic staff as the educational status quo in the current political climate, but what did they ever do to deserve such derision? They aren't even protected by the unions you dislike. Most aren't even political; they are well-educated, often leaders in research, who are just trying to raise their families too and are doing it on less and less each year. I agree there's bloat in the UW System budget (I criticized the fine arts quartet of UWM on a recent show, for example) and I was unhappy with the Paul Barrows situation, but what does that have to do with average faculty and academic staff, who are the ones taking the hit?

Mr. Wigderson, you also say that the only people who will be able to speak on education are teacher's unions. Huh? I never said that. The employees affected by this Legislative action are NON-UNIONIZED, which made them convenient targets. I like a robust debate - and this exchange is part of it. I'm just glad this is being talked about rather than tucked away in a political corner. Then, the kicker: Wigderson says he would benefit from a tax credit for private education.

Hey, all that's fair commentary. But it's pretty silly to call out my husband over something that I say. I encourage you to ask him his opinion at a candidate forum or, better yet, feel free to send him an email or call him. His contact information is available through his campaign Web Site.

Just don't assume his opinion will match mine, or that he has to "answer at home" if it doesn't. It doesn't and he doesn't, although I'm flattered you think I'm all-powerful in my marriage.

My husband has his own mind, and I have my own mind, and we have quite an interesting relationship because we are both in the public eye and involved in politics and with the media, but from very different angles. And the strength of our relationship is that it is built upon this common ground, but we don't expect to agree on everything. We honor that about each other. He is not accountable for my comments, and he's confident enough to have a strong wife with her own mind and not to be threatened by that. He doesn't even know what I'm going to write in advance, generally, (trust me, he's WAY too busy to sit around parsing my columns) and on the occasions where we disagree, he is OK with that, as am I.

Calling him Mr. Jessica McBride is funny because usually it's people on the Left implying that my husband's the Big Influence who made me more Conservative, which is really sexist. My husband is a man with strong bedrock beliefs, as those who know him will tell you. But if you're going to comment on something I say, why slam him for it?

I do admit it's tricky being a political commentator when your husband is running a statewide campaign, but I say what I think and believe, and not what the political status quo deems I SHOULD say or believe. And I was a political commentator before the campaign too.

The beauty of blogging is that these debates can occur in almost insta-time. And people have a way to speak back, unlike the largely one-way communication of the MSM (mainstream media).

Lethal Weapon?

Blogger Dennis York has an insightful take on the best and worst state government reporters. Read it here. Particularly interesting is his description of Steve Walters and Stacy Forster of the Journal Sentinel as akin to a Lethal Weapon pairing - a grizzled vet paired with a hotshot rookie. See a picture here and judge for yourself. I'm not sure I want to imagine Steve Walters in Aruba doing Tequila body shots though (sorry Steve). And no way is he going to get a fat pension. People got rich off Journal stock before the company went public (some reporters have a cool million) but the pensions at JS suck. But I like Stacy and think it's great they've got a female covering politics. In my grandmother's day as a pioneering political reporter at the old Milwaukee Sentinel in the 1960s, they would only let her cover the First Ladies.

Everything York wrote rang pretty true. I'd expand his list to include political reporters in general. That would allow inclusion of Greg Borowski. Of course, he covers Milwaukee City Hall and York was ranking the Capitol reporters, but Greg's the sharpest political writer at the state's largest paper. I wish the paper would make him a statewide political reporter and be done with it. I always thought it was a mistake to can those positions. I would cite Patrick Marley as a good reporter too; he's on the front page a lot with good enterprise, such as on the bloat in the state car fleet and outlandish no-bid costs for Web design at the DOT. I'd also give a nod to Greg Bump of wispolitics.com and Dennis Shook of the Freeman. Shook is a hard worker. And there's Spivak and Bice. Not sure if they are trying to be political columnists or reporters. I always thought it was a weird hybrid; they stick their opinion into news they are breaking, basically. But there is no question that they are diggers. Politicians court them like you wouldn't believe - and definitely fear them. And Brinkman and Dee J. Hall of the Wisconsin State Journal broke the state caucus scandal. Granted, the caucus stuff had been going on for years but it was THE story out of state government.

It's a pretty sad commentary that the JS Washington Bureau reporters are so invisible that they wouldn't even generate a thought on such a political list. Why aren't they breaking more news out of the state's Congressional delegation - real news, not just puffy roundups or explanatory pieces (Craig Gilbert is a good explanatory writer)? And why aren't the editors demanding it?

Forget TV. When my husband did his political spin around the state to announce his campaign, I was amazed how many TV reporters just regurgitated his press release. Most didn't even mention anything controversial about his cases. And my husband can be a lightning rod. They just repeated what he put out - literally the lead of his press release. Good for him, not so good for the media.

I'm sure I'm forgetting someone but it's really early and I was just up with the baby.

When Prospective Employers Read Your Diary

Courtesy of the excellent blog by UW-Milwaukee Prof Paul Brewer comes this fascinating warning about the perils of blogging in academia. The article ran in the Chronicle of Higher Education. An excerpt:

"Professor Shrill ran a strictly personal blog, which, to the author's credit, scrupulously avoided comment about the writer's current job, coworkers, or place of employment. But it's best for job seekers to leave their personal lives mostly out of the interview process.

It would never occur to the committee to ask what a candidate thinks about certain people's choice of fashion or body adornment, which countries we should invade, what should be done to drivers who refuse to get out of the passing lane, what constitutes a real man, or how the recovery process from one's childhood traumas is going. But since the applicant elaborated on many topics like those, we were all ears. And we were a little concerned. It's not our place to make the recommendation, but we agreed a little therapy (of the offline variety) might be in order."

Even more scary is blogging Conservative thoughts as an academic. The article doesn't really get into political blogs. Hopefully, that's an unnecessary fear.

But this article doesn't really hit the other side: Bloggers are becoming increasingly influential. They give academics the opportunity to influence public opinion in a more mainstream fashion than do the academics' dense and often dry journal articles that are written in the language of other academics. I respect academic research, and I like doing it, but little of it is actually read by average people. Blogs reach the masses (note my email on the readers who've landed on this blog). They create a link between professors and the masses and public opinion. They showcase intellectuals speaking in a language that is accessible. They give academics an audience beyond their lecture halls. And students like them because it shows them that their profs are players in the public sphere and are not techno-illiterate (especially in Journalism departments). So, I think the reasons for blogging are far greater than the reasons for not blogging, which basically amount to wanting to camouflage who you really are and cowing under to fear. And, as more academics get blogs, more academics on search committees will have blogs, and perhaps they will lighten up. Blogs need to start getting the respect they deserve!

Thought

How come there aren't more female political bloggers in Wisconsin?