Jay Bullock Gets One Wrong

by capper

Just three short months ago, when I was first entering and exploring the blogosphere, Jay was kind enough to invite me to join his cast of thousands and become a contributor to folkbum's. And I am grateful for the chance to express myself to an audience considerably larger than I would have had if I went off on my own. However, at the risk of appearing the ingrate, I have to point out an error, or at least a partial error, committed by my gracious host.

Last week, Jay wrote an eloquent piece about Lena Taylor's announcement that she is running for Milwaukee County Executive. This post was so well written that it was even listed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Best of the Blogs in yesterday's paper. The part of the post that I found to be erroneous is:

I did not ask at the time, although it seems obvious now in retrospect: Where was Scott Walker on the Assembly GOP budget that treated Milwaukee County like a toilet? Should it not be the responsibility of the Milwaukee County Executive to stand up for the county that he theoretically represents? But Walker's silence on the Assembly budget was deafening. He could not bring himself to stand up to his former colleagues and do his job.

And if Scott Walker doesn't want to do his job, we should help him out of it.

While all of this is undeniably true, he has committed the error of omission.

Saturday's MSJ had an article about the county board preparing to contend with Walker's proposed budget. The article points out that Walker's budget is dependent on receiving $19 million in increased state aid that is included in the Governor Doyle's and the democratic Senate's version of the state budget, but is absent in the republican assembly's version. Walker is also hoping for quick approval for a borrowing plan, else his budget explodes like each and every one of his budgets for the past several years.

While Jay points out, accurately, that Walker is willfully failing to meet the basic responsibilities of his job, the one he ran for, was elected for and the one he took an oath to perform, Jay does come up a bit short of the mark. The MSJ article reports that not only has Walker failed to stand up for Milwaukee County, he has attacked those that want to help Milwaukee. It is hard to be persuasive when you are biting the hand that feeds you.

In other words, Walker is not only failing to faithfully represent Milwaukee County, but he is willfully sabotaging any effort to help the county out of the miasma he has created. Or to paraphrase County Board Supervisor Quindel, who is cited as saying, in a bit of an understatement, Walker is "not very politically astute".

But the one truth Jay did hit on the head is that Walker needs to be helped out of office.