No Fire In Walker's Fireside Chat - - Self-Parody Or Ignorance On Display

Team Walker continues to provide what little humor - - his motives are debatable - - can be found in the paralyzing mess he has made of state government since taking office six weeks ago.

He has called his tumultuous and expansive attack on public employee collective bargaining "a modest proposal," when the phrase has always been code for "the exact opposite" ever since Jonathan Swift coined it nearly 300 years ago in a satire by the same name that argued, with a straight face, that the English poor could escape their horrible poverty by selling their toddlers to rich people - - for food.

Is that out of ignorance, or a subtle message to the poor he is said to be planning to boot from Medicaid? Or to the parents of kids in four-year-old kindergarten that Walker allies in the legislature keep saying, surely with his approval, should be eliminated?

Now he's scheduled a "fireside chat" for tonight, when it was a Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who introduced the term and form to American politics.

A Democrat who vastly expanded the size of government, created what today are called entitlements and made government the employer not only of last resort but often as the first option, too.

FDR...A Democratic icon? Is that the best you've got?

Didn't Ebeneezer Scrooge have some sot of signature move Walker could more accurately imitate instead?

Again - - we have no way of discerning if this is Walker and Co. poking a fresh stick in Democratic eyes, or another example of not knowing where our political or literary language originates.

Finally, there will be no fire in the fireplace because State Capitol fireplaces long ago were rendered inoperative.

So how is it a fireside chat? An empty fireplace is essentially just a hole in a wall.

It's a prop, a fake.

FDR, delivering his talks via radio, expected listeners to sit around their fireplaces and listen.

Did he suggest people gather around bare fireplaces?

And what's message there on a cold Wisconsin night?

"Get ready for the big chill."

"No warmth to my talk."

"You think it's cold now...just wait!"