Scott Walker's "Unbelievable Moment[s] Of True Journalism" Was Based On A Mistake

The Capital Times' John Nichols tells a great story about a story that was too good to be true.

It goes back to a detail in Scott Walker's infamous taped, prank call from a person claiming to be David Koch, a major supporter of right-wing causes and of Walker's gubernatorial campaign, too.

To drive home to the fake David Koch that the Walker anti-union message had support even among union members, Walker gleefully cited a New York Times story of February 21st about a man who had worked at the now-shuttered General Motors vehicle plant in Janesville who loved Walker's attack on public employee union workers. The United Auto Workers represented workers at the plant.

Nichols gets into the matter:

"The subject of the Feb. 21 piece was a fellow the Times identified as “Rich Hahan (who) worked at the General Motors plant here until it closed about two years ago … a union man from a union town …'”

No wonder Walker was giddy about the story.

He told the fake David Koch it was "one of those unbelievable moments of true journalism..."

Nichols quotes extensively from the transcript:

"Walker: ...I don’t normally tell people to read the New York Times, but the front page of the New York Times has got a great story, one of these unbelievable moments of true journalism, what is supposed to be objective journalism. They got out of the capital and went down one county south of the capital to Janesville, to Rock County, that’s where the General Motors plant once was."

“Koch” caller:  Right, right.

"Walker: ...The lead on this story is about a guy who was laid off two years ago, uh, he’s been laid off twice by GM, who points out that, uh, everybody else in his town has had to sacrifice except for all these public employees and it’s about damn time they do, and he supports me. Um, and they had a bartender, they had, I mean, every stereotypical blue-collar worker type they interviewed, and the only ones that weren’t with us were people who were either a public employee or married to a public employee. It’s an unbelievable story. So I went through and called all these, uh, a handful, a dozen or so lawmakers I worry about each day and said, “Everyone, we should get that story printed out and send it to anyone giving you grief.”

True journalism?

Really?

Get that story reprinted?

Not really.

The Times a few days later, Nichols notes, ran this correction:

“A front-page article on Tuesday about reaction among private sector workers in Wisconsin to Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to cut benefits and collective bargaining rights for unionized public employees referred incorrectly to the work history of one person quoted, and also misspelled his surname. While the man, Rich Hahn (not Hahan) described himself to a reporter as a ‘union guy,’ he now says that he has worked at unionized factories, but was not himself a union member. (The Times contacted Mr. Hahn again to review his background after a United Auto Workers official said the union had no record of his membership.)

There's something additionally comedic about Walker waxing so boastfully on a taped call to an impostor, then citing a newspaper story later corrected on the very point that supported Walker's boasts.

You wonder if the same Walker staffers who were so anxious to put the David Koch impostor on the line had also stuck that New York Times on the boss's desk for super-duper talking point material when the call from the fake Koch brother came through?