Saturday, March 31, 2007

Excuses for Ziegler; Smears for Clifford

Milwaukee wing-nut Charlie Sykes likes to brag about his use of the public airwaves to pervert democracy in Wisconsin. After every election, he brags about how (some of) the causes he champions by parroting GOP talking-points prevailed in elections big and small.

The erudite shill Sykes and other GOP-operatives disguised as "talk-radio hosts" may have another award to put on their built-on-public-airwaves trophy cases on Wednesday. Despite a historic indifference to the very basics of judicial ethics, damaged WMC candidate Annette Ziegler may well find herself on the Supreme Court. She may be the first judge in Wisconsin that won’t have to worry about being disciplined by the Judicial Commission because she already leap-frogged the process right to the Supremes.

With all the phony hand-wringing by the wing-nuts about the supposed crisis of ethics in Wisconsin government, you’d think they’d at least pretend that Ziegler ruling on dozens of cases in which she had a direct financial interest might be a legitimate issue. But, as always for the wing-nuts, that kind of consistency is for suckers. Seconds after the state GOP hits the "send" button on their twice-daily excuse-making, Clifford-smearing e-mails, the radio squawkers are out in full-force, providing hours of free advertising every day for the Ziegler campaign.

The unfortunate death of the Fairness Doctrine and the right-wing nuts’ "freedom" to express "their" opinions (someone let me know where the line forms for anyone of a different persuasion to exercise a similar "freedom" on a 50,000-watt station like TMJ) are one thing; outright campaigning on behalf of one candidate and, just as nefariously, against another during actual elections is quite something else. Although the current FCC would be a joke even if it did have a Fairness Doctrine to enforce, it certainly seems that the Ziegler campaign should have to report the hours of free support as in-kind contributions by the local stations that have chosen to walk the all-GOP-all-the-time party line. But, as in judicial ethics, following the law is...well, you're kidding, right?

Although the Ziegler campaign and her surrogate "independent" supporters such as WMC and the usual school-"choice" industry interlopers (with Ziegler, it is always hard to tell who is the surrogate – or puppet – for whom...wait, no it isn’t) blanketed the airwaves with actual paid commercials a month before Linda Clifford got anything out, Ziegler could not have withstood the barrage of bad ethics news without the support of her local buddies Charlie, Mark, Jessica, Jay, Jeff, et al, ad nauseam.

As they have for years with Bush, the major benefit provided to any GOP candidate by the extraordinarily pliant wing-nuts is two-fold: 1) making excuses for the documented incompetence/ethical lapses/bad behavior of their precious Republicans and 2) personally destroying anyone who dares to run against/criticize/investigate the same. The talking points are developed by the GOP and distributed to the radio clowns and they then all dutifully say the same things. Over and over. The lies become perceived as truth through sheer repetition by the most unoriginal, scripted radio voices since Bob Hope left for television.

Besides minimizing the clear ethics violations by Ziegler – I mean, why even bother trying to make small-claims cases fair...they are so...small – the GOP wing-nuts have gone after Clifford for remarkably silly things. First of all, they rant about how Clifford might be compromised in cases similar to the personal injury cases handled by her husband, without even seeing what cases she may or may not recuse herself from once she’s on the bench. Clifford says she will examine the issue case-by-case, which is exactly right. The list of businesses on the WMC's list of members that might have business before the bought-and-sold Ziegler if she gets on the court is a lot longer than Clifford's husband's client list. Oh, that's right. What does she care?

Then, playing the game of death-by-a-thousand cuts, the wing-nuts have brought us "concerned" discussions about a photographer being caught taking pictures (taking pictures!) of the Washington County Courthouse (the courthouse!) and saying he was a reporter when confronted by a Deputy Sheriff. Never mind why the deputy is out there harassing a photographer taking a photo of a public building or who might have sent him out there.

Finally, not to be outdone, newly-single Dan Bice (the "Ice Boy"?) got his solo wing-nut groove going by playing up some Zielger-generated tripe about a researcher hired by the Clifford campaign who apparently plagiarized some stuff when he worked for the Center for Public Integrity, behavior for which they say he was fired. According to the perfection-seeking Bice, Clifford was supposed to check more carefully on the background of the person checking on Ziegler’s background. The researcher came up with documentation of Ziegler’s many ethical challenges, including the many cases she handled involving the bank where her husband has a seat on the board. "As far as we know, he didn’t make any of it up," admits Bice. Really? So what’s the problem?

All this noise by the radio and print wing-nuts sets up the smoke in the background, solely for Ziegler’s benefit. The hours of carping about Clifford’s photographer outside the courthouse by the GOP radio surrogates means the Ziegler campaign can stay "above the fray", at least when she is not showing Clifford in front of a full moon with scary horror-movie headlines. The Clifford campaign doesn’t have to do that with Ziegler’s image on their ads – the tight-bunned official photo of Ziegler is scary enough.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the best piece I have read this year on the race for WI Supreme Court. Part of my gut says that you might be right about the outcome of this race, and that troubles me greatly. However my heart tells me that in spite of the political world in which we live where common sense is replaced by 30-second ads and tons of cash, our better angels will prevail on Tuesday. I have to hold to the view that our state...our voters...our democracy... is more solid and capable to make the way through the awful last couple of months and cast a vote for ethics and objective justice.

I just have to believe in the ability of the voters to do the right thing and vote for Clifford.

Anonymous said...

Clifford's muck-rakers cave all that dirt to the WSJ. WJS was then like "scoop! We got ya" So while you complain about little charlie, you're kind of hypocritical too. Clifford's got her own people in the media.

As always with the lefties--take the high road, fight dirty as hell, wax philosphical but do anything to win.

See ya from Syria!

Anonymous said...

"someone let me know where the line forms for anyone of a different persuasion to exercise a similar "freedom" on a 50,000-watt station like TMJ"

Come up with a program that someone would want to listen to and the line will form. It's called a free market, you should read about it sometime.

Mike Plaisted said...

On, come off it, Anony.

Do you think the pathetic Jessica McBride actually "developed" anything before being given her platform for GOP talking-points? What audition did Jay Weber go through before being given three-and-a-half hours a day to spin and lie on behalf of the GOP? Did Belling and Sykes have magical air checks to show their original employers before being given prime-time slots to rile up the angry-white-male demographic and poison the political atmosphere for everyone else?

You aren't really saying that either TMJ ot WISN has an open mind about the kinds of political opinion that they allow on their station, are you? WISN brags that it is "your conservative home" -- think there's room for anyone with opposing views? When even lesser-light McBride can't make it to the mic on any given night, is anyone other than substitute right-wing nuts allowed to participate?

Talk radio in Milwaukee isn't a "free market" any more than cable TV, electic service or gas prices. The fix is in and anyone to the left of Newt Gingrich can't possibly get a word in edge-wise. It would be one thing if the universally-parroted GOP talking points were so marvelously entertaining that the stations and advertisers could not resist.

But, you know better, don't you, Anony?

Anonymous said...

Give me a break. If nobody listened to Sykes, McBride or Belling they would be dumped. I am so sick of you lefty's complaining all of the time. I am an independant, I have voted for conservatives and liberals (I guess the new P.C word is Progressives), and I just find talk radio for liberals borring and hate filed. I do not listen any more. If their was a market for liberal radio, their would be more, so shut up with your complaining and your attacks. Most people in this county are in the middle, so to get the liberal point of view, just watch any newscast other than fox, and to get the conservative point of view I listen to Mark Belling. Air America radio sucks. Just rainting and raiving about Bush, how borring is that.

Anonymous said...

Clifford did not run, one positive campaign ad. All she did was attack Ziegler. Ziegler did not win because of the so called "right-wing" radio talk show hosts. I voted for Ziegler, for numerous reasons, for one, she was supported by all law enforcement organizations that offered a recomendation. Who was Clifford recommended by? Editorial boards of newspapers, the Association of Trial Lawyers, not very strong endorsements.

It is easy to say that Clifford lost because of the right-wing radio hosts, but that would be wrong.

Clifford lost because, most people do not want activist judges, who will follow the law not make up the law.

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