Charles Pierce "Scott Walker has been nothing if not a political coward"

I could give a long-winded explanation of the bunk our Governor tried to pawn off on the rest of the nation tonight in Waukesha, but instead I'll let someone else say it better about Scott Walker. That person today is Charles P. Pierce, who should be read every day regardless of the topic, but this is especially the case when it comes to talking about his fellow Marquette attendee SKW (the difference being that Charlie acted ethically and got his degree in school).

Here's Charlie's reminder of the type of big-talking, small-walking empty suit that Scotty is, and he especially demolishes the myth that Walker is some tough guy that has improved Wisconsin by taking his case to the people.

Since his approval rating in Wisconsin is headed south, and since he can't point to having accomplished much there except winning three elections, and since the budget he just signed demolishes Wisconsin's public universities while bestowing more goodies on the extraction industries, Walker's entire campaign is going to consist of how he stood up bravely to schoolteachers and firemen and elderly grandparents back in 2011 and 2012. This man can stand up to ISIL because he was able to beat back hordes of angry guidance counselors. We are going to hear about alleged death threats -- and a lot about the one that allegedly threatened to gut his wife like a fish -- and about how he bravely went to work each day. (You should keep in mind that at least one of those stories that he peddles is pure moonshine.) And then there's that business about the "teacher of the year" that Walker uses to make the case that the wreckage he's made of public education in the state is really the construction of a palace. (Go Warriors!) Nothing the man says can be trusted. If you work for him, and you are instructed to do something ethically dubious, rest assured that you're on your own when it hits the fan. But Walker's invocation of his own courage as a campaign trope is perhaps the most fraudulent thing of all. Because, throughout his career, Scott Walker has been nothing if not a political coward.

During the protests back in 2011 and 2012, he hid in his office. A hundred thousand of his constituents were there on his lawn and he declined to hear what they had to say. He used a tunnel to get back and forth to the state capitol. He empowered the Capitol police to roust legitimate demonstrators from a building that had a proud history of open protest and open political activism. He lit the capitol's Christmas tree in the early morning hours in a closed ceremony instead of opening the proceedings to the public. In January, a Wisconsin appeals court ruled that many of the tactics that were used against the demonstrators -- and, in particular, against the Solidarity Singers -- were unconstitutional. This was what Unintimidated Scott Walker hid behind while he was dismantling progressive democracy in the state where so much of it was born and selling the state off wholesale to whoever wanted to buy a chunk. And, last week, when it was discovered that there had been slipped into the budget an item that would have gutted the state's open-records law, one of the last remaining elements of progressive government in Wisconsin that Walker hasn't shredded, the state exploded in bipartisan outrage. True to form, Walker and his people tried to fob the responsibility off on the Republicans in the legislature until Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald blew the whistle on who really was to blame. Unintimidated! Leadership!

Walker has spent his time as governor cosseted by (until very recently) a docile legislative majority and insulated by millions and millions of dollars of out-of-state money. If he were any deeper in someone's pocket, he'd be covered in lint.

Read the whole thing, it's exceptional even by Pierce's already-high standards.