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2014-10-26 Home Front: Politix

George F. Will: The nastiest political tactic this year

[Washington Post] Milwaukee County's Democratic district attorney, John Chisholm... has used Wisconsin's uniquely odious "John Doe" process to launch sweeping and virtually unsupervised investigations while imposing gag orders to prevent investigated people from defending themselves or rebutting politically motivated leaks.

Gangster government -- Michael Barone's description of using government machinery to punish political opponents or reward supporters -- has stained Wisconsin, illustrating this truth: The regulation of campaigns in the name of political hygiene (combating "corruption" or the "appearance" of it) inevitably involves bad laws and bad bureaucracies susceptible to abuse by bad people.

Because of Chisholm's recklessness, the candidate he is trying to elect, Burke, can only win a tainted victory, and if she wins she will govern with a taint of illegitimacy. No known evidence demonstrates any complicity in Chisholm's scheme, but in a smarmy new ad she exploits his manufactured atmosphere of synthetic scandal in a manner best described as McCarthyite. Indeed, one probable purpose of Chisholm's antics was to generate content for anti-Walker ads.

Wisconsin can repair its reputation by dismantling the "John Doe" process and disciplining those who have abused it. About one of them, this can be said: Having achieved political suppression by threatening criminal liability based on vague theories of "coordination," Chisholm has inadvertently but powerfully made the case for deregulating politics.

Posted by Fred 2014-10-26 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 I am afraid this is just another leftist tool in the legal arsenal to gain and maintain power. And most in the media just stand back and admire and encourage the left.

Posted by Airandee 2014-10-26 07:39|| 2014-10-26 07:39|| Front Page Top

#2 By any means necessary (short of exciting the owners of 300 million privately owned guns).

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-10-26 08:58|| 2014-10-26 08:58|| Front Page Top

#3 Milwaukee cannot escape the contamination of Chicago and neighboring Madison.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-10-26 09:05|| 2014-10-26 09:05|| Front Page Top

#4 A vile tactic used by Progressives to stifle the democratic election process. However, how does one select this tactic as being preeminent from all the dirty tricks?

It has been reported on Fox this a.m. that an estimated 700,000 illegals voted in the last election. This seems significant since most of these illegal voters can be counted on to vote Democrat.

There is a "Wastebook" started by Senator Tom Coburn. Maybe a "Progressive Dirty Tricks" should be started also--like the Darwin Award.

Posted by JohnQC 2014-10-26 09:40|| 2014-10-26 09:40|| Front Page Top

#5 JohnQC -- there's not enough paper in the universe to cover ALL the Dummycheats' dirty tricks.

Posted by Old Patriot 2014-10-26 14:41|| 2014-10-26 14:41|| Front Page Top

#6 There is a "Wastebook" started by Senator Tom Coburn. Maybe a "Progressive Dirty Tricks" should be started also--like the Darwin Award.

The Daley Awards

Posted by charger 2014-10-26 14:43|| 2014-10-26 14:43|| Front Page Top

09:43 Mullah Richard
09:27 Warthog
09:11 Mercutio
09:07 AlmostAnonymous5839
08:52 Matt
08:24 Matt
08:20 SteveS
07:43 Procopius2k
07:42 BrerRabbit
07:42 Procopius2k
07:39 Procopius2k
07:36 Procopius2k
07:35 Procopius2k
07:34 trailing wife
07:31 Procopius2k
07:30 NN2N1
07:22 NN2N1
07:18 trailing wife
07:14 Richard Aubrey
07:10 NN2N1
07:09 Besoeker
07:03 NN2N1
06:58 NN2N1
06:58 Besoeker