Walker In Full-Teflon Immersion On Doe Issues

Echoing a week-old campaign talking point, Walker evades any John Doe culpability by telling the AP on Monday his 2010 gubernatorial campaign only coordinated things with Milwaukee County work when he was also the County Executive:

The morning phone calls were about coordinating staffing and scheduling issues between the campaign and county office and discussing how to handle questions from the media, Walker said.

"Often times there's not a distinction between asking a political question in the official office and the campaign office," he said. "All those things are things that need to be coordinated. There's nothing wrong with that."

Ask yourself if these examples as reported by the Journal Sentinel from the DA's public presentation last week at the sentencing of one of Walker's former top aides sound like coordination with county staff (the campaign's ho-hum position) or direction to the county staff - - for Walker's partisan advantage and strategic benefit - - from "The Campaign Group."

The Campaign Group vetted news releases that were issued from Walker's county office, [Assistant Milwaukee County District Attorney Bruce] Landgraf said. They included messages about...news reports in the Journal Sentinel in August that year about patient sexual assaults at the county Mental Health Complex...

In one exchange among members of The Campaign Group, [campaign manager Gilkes admonished Walker's county staff to be more forceful in responding to questions about the patient abuse issue, which included highly critical state and federal inspectors' reports.

"Tell (county Deputy Corporation Counsel Timothy) Schoewe we're getting the crap kicked out of us," one email said. "I would like him to stop being a lawyer and think political," Gilkes wrote...

Walker's campaign staff also vetted the county response to the June 24, 2010, death of 15-year-old Jared Kellner, who was killed by a concrete panel that fell from the side of the O'Donnell Park parking garage at the lakefront.

Gilkes, in an email written the day of the accident, advised Walker's county staff to "make sure there is not a piece of paper anywhere that details any problem at all."

"Nothing wrong with that?" Then why did the Journal Sentinel, after having endorsed Walker twice for Governor and three times for County Exec, describe what the DA revealed as "seamy"?