Monday, November 30, 2009

Too Clever By Half

Last week, Roger Bybee wrote a column for The Isthmus which highlighted some of the problems Scott Walker is going to face in this, the most recent stage of his perpetual run for governor. One of the points is Walker's hypocrisy:

As a prominent political player with a long track record, Walker faces a major paradox: persuading the public to select a candidate for governor whose anti-government views are central to his outlook. He's even recommended dissolving Milwaukee County government and spreading its duties to the city and other municipalities.

How can a person who sees government as a main part of the problem make it an integral part of the solution?

"It's like saying you want to run the Brewers, yet you hate baseball," quips former Milwaukee County Supv. Roger Quindel.

I encourage the gentle reader to read the full article. It is fairly even handed and objective, and well written.

But not all would agree. Christian Schneider took umbrage with the title, or actually, the subtitle, to be exact, of the piece. Of course, it should be noted that Schneider writes his piece under the WPRI banner, which is edited by Charlie Sykes. And we already know who holds Syke's leash.

Schneider writes (emphasis mine):
Here you have a guy in Scott Walker who clearly thinks government is broken, and there’s too much of it. Is it somehow contradictory of him to seek the governorship to rectify the problems that he sees? Isn’t that how a conservative would most rationally go about affecting change? Would he be more ideologically pure if he stood on a street corner holding a sign that says “down with combined reporting?”
The problem with Schneider's argument is that he doesn't follow the logic to the conclusion, but stops halfway.

Where Schneider states that Walker thinks the government is broken, he fails to properly note that it is people like Walker that broke it. So again, it makes no sense to put someone who breaks things, then complains about it being broken, in charge of something else he could break.

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