More from Your Liberal Media

One of these days I'll get to meet Mike Plaisted and shake his hand. He has the stomach to read what I don't. For example, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He writes,

[R]eading veteran state-house reporter Steve Walters’ open letter to state leaders in today’s Crossroads section, it appears the key writers reporting on the race were also drinking the Republican Kool-Aid.

In the brief section of the letter directed to the reelected governor, Walters, without any basis that I’m aware of, accuses Doyle of the sin of ambition. He claims that a second term is something Doyle "desperately wanted since January 2003, when you stood in the Capitol rotunda, with your proud and smiling mother looking on from her wheelchair, and took your first oath of office as governor." He advises the governor to spend the next four years "creating a legacy instead of being obsessed with having to raise another $12 million to seek a third term." So he "desperately wanted" a second term before the first one ever started and he was "obsessed" with raising money for his campaigns. Gee, Steve, anything else? Oh, yeah – he says, since Doyle has now had five successful statewide campaigns: "That's not a bad public service record to retire on."

Well, alrighty, then. Doyle was supposedly in a big hurry to get to his second term and Walters is already encouraging him to pull the plug after this one. Well, I mean, if you are Doyle, why bother? His first term was supposedly meaningless without the second and the chief political writer for the Journal Sentinel is already hoping to treat him like a lame duck.

That "ambition" thing is how they justified getting Caesar. Not that I think Doyle is Caesar--Doyle hasn't taken Gaul (or even the U.P.), for example--but it's an old trope and Walters should know better than to drag it out just because he doesn't like Doyle. Worse, he shouldn't have let that obvious dislike of Doyle color his reporting. Walters--and my conservative reader(s)--would probably disagree that it did so, but it's clear, and Plaisted, Xoff, I, Seth, and others documented it all summer throughout the autumn.

In fact, reading Walters's letter, Doyle is served a heapin' helpin' of scorn in every sentence, while the other recipients of the letter--Judy Robson, Mike Huebsch, Jim Kreuser, and Scott Fitzgerald--all get compliments or outright praise.

Just remember, ladies and gentleman, that is your liberal media at work: a scornful, impudent reporter assigned to cover the object of his disgust. I'm looking forward to four more years of Capital reporting from his slanted pen.