National media says what Wisconsin media will not

One thing I find quite frustrating over the last month is how our local media refuses to give proper context to the foolishness and dishonesty constantly being displayed by our Governor on the campaign trail. Instead, they are running numerous "Walker as celebrity" stories that try to make this sound like "local boy trying to make it on the big stage", despite the fact that Walker didn't live in the state until he was 16, never earned a college degree in the state, and has basically ignored the needs and desires of the majority of people in this state to satisfy his own selfish ambitions.

So instead, it falls to the national media to tell Wisconsinites that their emperor has no clothes. And no one has consistently done it better than Charles P. Pierce of Esquire.com. Pierce is a Marquette grad who knows the state's rich history, and just how mendacious Walker is when it comes to discussing his record, and the results of his policies, and he roasts Walker in his latest, must-read column.

First off, Pierce notes Walker's adversarial relationship with decency, consistency and facts when it comes to campaigning.

Consider, for example, today's piece in Tiger Beat On The Potomac [Politico] , in which is discussed the early days of the campaign of Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin. Every campaign the man has run since he was a student at Marquette has been marked by, ahem, irregularities. The way you know this is that a number of his aides have been sent to jail. TBOTP looks at his record on many major issues and sees a similar corruption of mind. What he says on a number of important issues -- labor rights, women's rights, the environment -- while he is running for an office has little or nothing to do with what he actually does after being elected. The man is an unprincipled scoundrel.

True enough, but Charlie goes in for the money shot after ripping on the dopes at Politico for shrugging off Scotty's lies as merely something that could hurt his campaign. Pierce points out that the type of dingbats and weak-minded wack jobs that vote in GOP primaries don't care about things like Walker's dishonesty and flip-flops, as long as he's on their side, which makes the media's negligence all the more damning.

First of all, this "problem" is not going to mean fk-all to the Republican base, because the Republican base is filled with crazoids, Bible-bangers, and people with short-wave radios for brains. All they know is that Walker knuckled all the people of whom The Base is terrified. The only way Walker's bone-deep dishonesty can hurt him is if the people who stoke the plutocratic engine of the party believe that it might make him a loser. So far, they seem quite happy with the way he's done business for them.

But there's a deeper problem with how this piece says something without really saying it. What the story clearly illustrates is that Scott Walker cannot be trusted as far as you can throw Lambeau Field. He's a half-bright messianic fraud with the political instincts of a wolverine and the integrity of a gaboon viper. But, in this story, you can already see forming the notion that Walker's fundamental mendacity can be washed in the blood of the Lamb and repurposed as a clever campaign strategy. "If it takes hold"? There should be no "if" about it, because this is who this guy is. But the writer of the piece is very careful to leave himself an out if Scott Walker shows the ability to lie his way into the presidency. (So, I might add, are those chickenshit GOP operatives who wouldn't talk on the record.) I predict this writer will go far in his chosen profession, and the country can only hope Scott Walker doesn't.

It's been obvious that Scott Walker hsa been a coreless, cowardly slimeball for most if not all of his 22 years in public office, but the corporate Wisconsin media is simply too paid off to tell their readers and listeners this fact- There's too much ad money to pass up at Journal Communications, at least in the quarter that included the November 2014 elections.

Here's another example of how it takes national commentators to break through the noise and cover-ups that the locals pull here. Check out this part of an interview HBO's Bill Maher did with Buzzfeed, where he explains why he thinks Walker is a leading contender for the GOP nomination. It's not because Maher thinks Scotty is a visionary leader.

Regular viewers of Maher’s HBO show would not have been surprised by his wholesale dismissal of the Republican presidential field. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, he said, was most likely to clinch the GOP nomination because “he’s the worst, and the Republicans, you know, they are pretty good at nominating the ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ candidate. And to me, Mr. Walker is the ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ candidate.” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has “honesty, integrity, and intelligence issues.” “What I call The Full Palin.” None of the GOP field is “of presidential timbre,” Maher said, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Now ask yourself where would you hear this take about Walker from local radio and TV stations in Wisconsin, even though there's a whole lot of us that agree that Maher's take? And any coverage of Maher's take on Walker will come with a "oh, what does that Hollywood guy know" sneer, so they don't have to discuss the content of Maher's take- which is that Walker's a clown without substance and a bad guy on top of it.

I'm really having a hard time containing my anger at this point, because it's obvious to anyone that's not on the take that Scott Walker is lying, clueless, and is driving the state into a ditch. But because so much of our local media IS on the take (whether through ads or through their hopes of selling future Walker books), a sizable amount of Wisconsinites are still not getting the real story on this guy, and not understanding how bad it is making the state look to the rest of the nation. And it makes me wonder what kind of further action needs to be taken, because merely boycotting the J-S and related right-wing media along with waiting for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to lay the lumber isn't getting the job done, with each day of delay leading to more damage being inflicted.