From the editorial:
What that has meant over the past year is that recalls are triggered primarily over single-vote issues. Yes, those seeking the recall of Gov. Scott Walker will tell you that drive is about a slew of issues from canceling a Milwaukee-to-Madison fast rail line to alleged power grabs by the governor to so-called giveaways to Big Business and so on.
But does anyone really think there would be a recall drive if the governor had not proposed and gotten passed Act 10 last year, which severely limited collective bargaining for most public employee unions in the state?Here is another way to write that line - -
But does anyone really think that Scott Walker would have been elected Governor if he had disclosed during the campaign that he intended to introduce a bill which severely limited collective bargaining for most public employee unions in the state?- - and the inspiration for that rewrite comes from three memorable lines from a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial of just about a year ago I had posted and have repeated because the reasoning and conclusion was dead-on accurate then, and remain so today:
Walker never campaigned on disenfranchising public-employee unions. If he had, he would not have been elected. He got a spare 52% of the vote - hardly a mandate for what he is trying to do.The recall effort is more than a reaction to a single-vote, and there are numerous issues about Walker's entire agenda that need to be raised.
A recall election is the only means available to hold Walker accountable for an out-sized lie of omission: his failure to disclose when it counted - - during the campaign - - that he intended, if he were to win, to do away with most public sector collective bargaining - - a lie compounded by his subsequent insistence to the contrary, PolitiFact has found.
No one knows what the recall outcome will be.
But it will force Walker to participate in the contest he denied Wisconsin voters in 2010: a fully-honest election, with every one's cards on the table.
The political sociopath will never debate his opponent. His campaign will be nothing but ads put on by sham groups like the Maciver institute and Club for Growth aka Walker Groupie Clubs.
ReplyDeleteThe JS editorial staff writers seem to have forgotten their own words.
ReplyDelete"Scott Walker has said repeatedly during his campaign for governor that he will develop strategies to create 250,000 new jobs during his first term.
ReplyDeleteIt's a big promise - one that has been derided by his critics. But for the sake of Wisconsin, Walker had better be right....
There can be no more kicking the can down the Wisconsin road. If there is one thing Walker has shown in his tenure as county executive, it is an abiding intolerance for the failures of business as usual."
Written by...the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel when they endorsed Scott Walker for Governor in 2010.
And Walker's failures in ethics, performance, and competence IS his "business as usual," both in Madison and in Milwaukee. Just like Walker, the J-S can't be allowed to run from their own words.
@Jake - - Yes, I have quoted that one, too. I seem to recall that the paper has already editorialized that he alone can't be blamed if the number isn't reached, but I shouldn't write from what I used to call "memory,"
ReplyDeleteJames- Here's that one froma cuple of weeks back. Its wuss-out factor is impressive:
ReplyDelete"Politicians are always eager to offer simple solutions; voters sometimes are too eager to believe them. The real reasons elude such mushy thinking. Whatever is the matter with Wisconsin - if, indeed, anything is - has a whole lot more to do with business conditions here and elsewhere than it does with the actions of any single politician."
And it's total BS. Here's where I called them and other Wis. newspapers out on that.
Combine that with the Appleton/ Wausau papers going McCarthyist on their employees for exercising their rights to sign a recall petition, and it's time to seriously go after this state's corporate media. Bad enough that they were derelict in duty by allowing Walker to be elected despite huge evidence of his failures in Milwaukee, but their editorial boards are now acting unacceptably one-sided as they double-down on their mistake.
They seem to be more concerned about covering their own asses instead of serving the public as an honest watchdog.
The JS is winning the Sluts-of-the-Century contest.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line for the JS editorial page is to be in sync with the downtown business community on local and state issues. That explains the original Walker endorsement, and the tone of editorials opposing recalls of Walker and legislators, one of supporting Walker reluctantly out of duty, rather than conviction that he's right, a la talk radio.
ReplyDelete