The Nobel Peace Prize? Barack Obama got one roughly a week before he was sworn into office, if memory serves. The Pulitzer Prize? Walter Duranty of the New York Times won it for covering up Stalin’s forced starvation of millions in the Ukraine. Art Carney the best actor Oscar in 1974 over Jack Nicholson in Chinatown and Al Pacino in Godfather 2? Gimme a break!
These awards are tarnished by such injustices. Rendered less meaningful. Thanks for participating.
Now, for an award recognized for its integrity from Middleton to Monona, none rivals The Capital Times’ eagerly sought recognition. That is, of course, the We Demand Your Immediate Resignation honor.
Congratulations, Brad Schimel, attorney general of the State of Wisconsin. You are the latest recipient of this prestigious accolade. It is your Red Badge of Courage. Your Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur. There it is, emblazoned for all time in today’s newspaper insert, in bold black 42-point type:
“Attorney General Brad Schimel should resign.”
“Out of respect for the constitution and to restore the rule of law, Schimel should resign,” the commendation from The Capital Times reads.
To San Clemente with you!
Brad Schimel now joins a pantheon of illustrious public servants that include Speaker Paul Ryan and Governors Tommy Thompson and Lee Dreyfus, assorted cabinet members and other distinguished public servants. All, strangely enough, Republicans.
The Capital Times labels Schimel “a partisan political operative.” Nice touch! We’re guessing it’s not the partisanship that grieves the CT but that Schimel’s is the wrong brand. Nor is he a political operative. One Scot Ross is a political operative; his every gaseous emission eagerly scooped up by the publication founded in 1917. Brad Schimel, on the other hand, is an elected state constitutional officer. But we quibble. The point is that one must strike a mighty blow against redistributionism, victim-mongering, and Big Gummint statism to receive The Coveted Call to Resign! Quit! Pack it in! Wave bye bye and board the helicopter. They’ll never write a book about your mother!
The smoking gun footnote
How has the A.G. evinced this partisanship? What was the “extreme partisanship has caused [Schimel] to abandon basic legal standards?”
The worst abuse that has so far been discovered in Schimel’s report involves wholly false speculation that a newspaper reporter’s wife might have provided information to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In other words, “the worst abuse so far discovered” is (wait for it …): a footnote.
A single footnote nestled on Page 39 of Schimel’s report on the secret, state speech-police operation that conducted pre-dawn raids on private homes, carried away computers and cell phones, hoovered up hundreds of thousands of private emails from dozens of conservatives — office holders and private citizens alike. Some of them radio journalists. Much of it kept in files labeled “Opposition Research.”
Most egregiously, “150 personal emails between Senator Leah Vukmir and her daughter, including emails containing private medical information and other highly personal information.”
Why this vendetta against political speech? Because one group of conservatives may have confabbed with another group of conservatives on mutal issues of their governance. All in service of a “theory” of “illegal campaigning” — a theory repudiated by three courts. (So much for “respect for the constitution” and “the rule of law.”)
Has The Capital Times editorialized against this assault on political speech? Hold not thy breath. Paul Fanlund, Dave Zweifel, John Nichols are too busy scrounging for footnotes. The one on the bottom of Page 39 surely exonerates the massive over-reach of government police powers waged by the Milwaukee district attorney and the Government Accountability Board.
Standing up for free speech — 66 years agoIt’s sad, really. The Capital Times is observing the 100th anniversary of its founding. (Best wishes to my alma mater.) It fondly recalls its brave stand against Joe McCarthy. (Just because old Joe couldn’t shoot straight doesn’t mean there weren’t any squirrels in the woods.) The Corporation that Speaks in the Progressive Voice repeats the oft-told tale of reporter John Patrick Hunter (a wonderful man!) who, amid the hysteria of 1951, got but one Madisonian to sign a petition that consisted of the Bill of Rights. That profile in courage occurred 66 years ago.
- Since that time (Truman was president, the Braves had not yet moved to Milwaukee), the University of Wisconsin instituted draconian speech codes, anonymous star chamber complaint boxes where professors could be ruined with no recourse to confront anonymous complainants. From The Capital Times, embarrassed silence.
- Conservatives speakers shouted down and disinvited. From The Capital Times, support for the heckler’s veto. If John Patrick Hunter were to petition today for the right of free wheeling political discourse unfettered by government speech commissars, would The Capital Times sign it?
So wear your award proudly, Brad Schimel. You have earned it. It is an award for which Squire Blaska has striven but, given the whims of the voters in my county board district, he has nothing from which to resign, any more.
It may be too much to hope that The Capital Times could yet remedy its oversight. Perhaps a headline reading: “Blaska should have resigned.”
I’ve earned it.
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