Prism Lawsuit Baseless; Newspaper Still Makes Doyle Look Guilty

Conservatives and Republicans across the state went all kinds of giddy earlier this week when a development firm sued the state, blaming the much-maligned former Administration Secretary--now campaign chair--for Jim Doyle, Marc Marotta, for their having lost a building contract with UW-Milwaukee. Fraley, for example, flat-out claimed that Marotta intervened, contra what Marotta told the witch hunt State Finance Committee and the law.

However, no such thing occured:

At Wednesday's commission meeting, [Sen. Carol Roessler (R-Oshkosh)] said the commission itself, rather than Marotta, was responsible for ending negotiations with Prism. "It was our decision as a Building Commission. . . . We were dissatisfied with the process. And when we looked into the process more and more we said, 'This process we cannot support,' " she said at the meeting.

Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) agreed that the commission was displeased with the negotiations, but also noted that commissioners have little say in building projects because they do not select vendors. Instead, they take up-or-down votes on bidders selected by evaluation committees. "These are very complex issues--complex deals--that are put together and we literally get two days to look at them," Fitzgerald said.

So here we have two Republicans who were there, not just watching from the sidelines, who confirm Marotta's story and who place the blame not on any intervention by Doyle or Marotta on behalf of campaign contributors, but on Prism--the development company that has filed the lawsuit. See, Prism broke the rules and, after following the state law and their own sense of ethics, the commission overseeing the bidding process for this project unanimously called for a do-over.

Yet the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which is reporting that the Republicans on the commission support Doyle and Marotta's claims that nothing improper happened, doesn't headline the story "Republicans defend action of Doyle aid." That would make sense, right? Gives you a good sense of what the politically significant news within the story might actually be.

No, the paper decided to call it, "Doyle defends actions of aide in UWM project." The sub-head, "Commission made the final call, he says," makes it even worse: If all you read was the headline--and maybe the lede--you wouldn't know at all that the commission itself is defending Marotta and saying that they made "the final call." Sure, Doyle repeated what the Republican members of the commission said, but Doyle's saying it isn't what makes it news. Instead, it looks like stonewalling or, worse, covering up, from Doyle. That leaves room for the right Cheddarsphere and the talk-show bloviators to keep spinning this, keep the story of a "corrupt" Jim Doyle alive for a few more days.

That kind of enabling needs to stop.

Thompson emails: Smoking gun or just smoking something?

The Wisconsin GOP thinks it has the smoking gun in the Georgia Thompson "travelgate" case. A press release (.pdf) has copies of emails Thompson sent that, if you squint real hard and imagine things that aren't there, might indicate the the "scandal" goes all the way to the top.

In one email, Thompson mentions that she's arranging for the winning bidder (remember that Thompson's insisting on a final round of bids saved taxpayers money!) Adelman Travel to visit the offices of the Governor, one of the people who would be using the services of the agency. This makes sense to me:

But Doyle spokesman Matt Canter said there was nothing improper about Thompson trying to arrange the visit to the governor's office after the contract was awarded.

"Thompson and her staff went around to government agencies, including the governor's office, to explain the new procedures of the travel contract," Canter said.

Of course, the more important--and completely unasked--question is, If Adelman Travel was so well-connected to the Governor, why would they need Thompson to arrange a visit?

In a second, very long email, from January of 2005, as the bidding process was just getting started, Thompson included one line about Marc Marotta, Governor Doyle's then Administration Secretary (now a high roller in the re-election campaign). The line is about what was included in the Request for Proposals (RFP) sent out to travel agencies. "We included language in the RFP," she wrote, "about hotels and airlines, as Marc Marotta suggested." To the GOP, Marotta's suggestion that (horrors!) the state's travel agency might cover both airlines and hotels is tantamount to his having selected Adelman as quid pro quo for Adelman's contributions to the Doyle campaign. In fact (from the JSOnline link above):

Marotta said he attended one meeting, which his schedule says was held in Ocober 2004, at which a potential $4 million savings by consolidating state travel was discussed.

There you go. But again, an important and unasked question remains. The very next sentence in that Thompson email reads, "I still believe both hotels and airlines need to be bid separately [. . .]." If Thompson was supposedly doing all this to please her supervisors, why would she express reservations, instead of going at it full bore? Seriously, do you really think it would help you with your boss if you went around saying, "Hm, I think my boss may be wrong"?

It doesn't make sense. The GOP is not making a very good case here, and if this is as close as they can get to a smoking gun, then maybe it's the crack they're smoking.

What's more, the Republican-appointed US Attorney who's been on this case--and who secured the conviction against Thompson--thinks the GOP is on crack, too. Again from the JSOnline link, with my emphasis:

U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic, who prosecuted Thompson, said in a statement today that in the course of his investigation, he had examined the e-mail released by the Republican Party and concluded there was nothing in it criminally damaging to Marotta. In fact, Marotta was not even called as a witness in Thompson's trial.

"The public should not presume that anyone else will be charged," Biskupic said. "We are continuing to look at the evidence, but the public is cautioned not to read anything else into it, only that we're being careful. It doesn't necessarily mean that more charges are forthcoming."

Seth Zlotocha called it right the other day when he said that the GOP's relentless negative digs at Doyle--and, in today's case, desperate digs at Doyle--show nothing more than a lack of leadership and a plan from their candidate for governor, Mark Green. If they had something positive to show, they would show it. Green's got nothing, so they have to do the next best thing--stretch the truth about Jim Doyle.