Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Gov. Baldspot

While I enjoy reading other blogs and respect their work, once in a while, one really stands out.  In My humble opinion a recent blog by Monologues of Dissent was about as good as a blog can get.  

For that that have not seen it, here it is in its entirety. I recommend putting MOD on your daily reader list


The Governor's Baldspot: Has the Blame Game finally gone too far?

Scott Walker has been playing the blame game forever - most notably in blaming former governor Jim Doyle and/or President Obama for everything that happened, ever, either before, during, or after he took office.

But his latest, most bizarre claim, might be the tipping point for Wisconsinites who've had enough of his failure to take responsibility for his administration's many failures.

And it's all about The Baldspot.

Apparently, the governor is so insecure about this that he felt strangely compelled to compensate for it by drawing attention to its dominant appearance in the cartoons of Phil Hands.  However, rather than laugh it off in a self-depreciating way, as he apparently intended, Walker instinctively launched into an elaborate story about how the bald spot isn't his fault:
The bald spot, he said, was the result of a repair incident in the kitchen when he banged his head on an open kitchen cabinet door while making repairs requested by his wife, Tonette.
She kept telling him to go to the doctor to get the scar on his head looked at, he said. When he finally did, the doctor said his hair would never grow back in that spot, the governor explained.
Tonette still points to the bald spot as a reminder that he should always listen to his wife, he said.
Now, first of all, WHO CARES IF HE IS BALDING?!  Why are even talking about this totally inconsequential matter when half a million Wisconsinites are uninsured, our state is dead last in jobs growth, our public education system is under direct attack, and hundreds of thousands of families are barely making ends meet?

And yet...I can't help but fixate on this moment - not because I care about The Baldspot, but because I can't help but wonder:
How pathological a liar do you have to be to blame a cabinet,
and, in a passive-aggressive way, your wife - for your bald spot?  
If she hadn't made him fix that cabinet, he could be Fabio right now.  Or at least Paul Ryan.

And in case you're giving the Governor the benefit of the doubt here, I present Exhibit A:
The Baldspot

Blaming a cabinet - and by extension his wife for making him fix it - for this um, "scar," is outrageous.

But it's par for the course in Walker's blame game.

Governor Walker blames a cabinet for his bald spot like he blames workers for not being "skilled enough" to have jobs.  When the myth of the "skills gap" has been disproven time and time again.

Like he blames teachers for the failings of underfunded schools.  When his cuts to public education are the largest in history.

Like he blames students in poverty for not "performing" and says the only solution is to privatize public schools.  When his demands for "accountability" prevent educators from focusing on the students who need the most help, and his voucher expansion is destroying the very fabric of the social contract that provides an equal playing ground for all Wisconsinites.

Like he blames the uninsured and underemployed for not being enterprising enough to get "good jobs" that pay a living wage. When he laughs about the $144K salary he earns as governor not being "real money" and insists that the minimum wage "doesn't serve a purpose."  And the insurance companies who contributed to his campaign are seeing massive paybacks from his decision to reject OUR federal taxdollars in Medicaid funds to keep people off BadgerCare.

Scott Walker is not new to the blame game.  It comes very naturally to him.

But when you blame a cabinet for your bald spot, people have to stop to wonder.

If we can't trust him to be honest about such a trivial matter, how can we trust him on anything?
The short answer is: we don't.

At least half of us, who've been paying close attention for the past 4 years, have been calling out the governor's fabrications all along.  Even on the right-leaning Politifact, 68% of his statements that have been put to the test have not passed the lie-detector.  And yet: the governor's success in "dividing and conquering" this state during an already divisive national political climate has been enormous: people on Team Walker are now assumed to be so firmly entrenched in their belief in him that they won't question any of his prevarications.

But maybe, just maybe, a little white lie will be big enough to wake up "the believers" and plant some seeds of doubt.  And maybe, just maybe, people who haven't been paying much attention - or who've been dismissing the he said/she said as more partisan bickering will start to see the light. 

It's a matter of principle.

And Wisconsin deserves better.




12 comments:

  1. Put a ass-hat on and YOU can cover that bald spot!!!

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    1. Reince is busy in DC.

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    2. As well as in Wisconsin, even though Michael Best's website still declares Reince's status with them as "on leave."
      His law firm was directly involved with the WisGOP gerrymandering, Voter ID litigation, as well as defending those in his party that lost their recalls.
      Just maybe this is why Reince and Grover Norquist called Walker's campaign "the model" for Republicans at the last CPAC.

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  2. Some medical researchers may suspect BDLS (Baldness Denial LIAR Syndrome) is a variant of Little Man Syndrome.

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  3. Just one more way that Jim Doyle is a better man (and, frankly, Governor) than Scott Walker could ever dream to be.

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  4. SKW, the Jay Cutler of Wisconsin politics.

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  5. Where did he hit his head - the round spot in the back, or that big triangle leading to his part?

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  6. Typical Walker.

    Everything, EVERYTHING is always someone else's fault.

    I have a giant growing bald spot on my head because my wife asked me to fix something around the house and I bumped my head.

    I did not create the 250,000 jobs that I had promised Wisconsin voters would be the floor and not the ceiling and that I wanted them to hold me accountable to that promise but I couldn't create all of those jobs because of the recall elections, oh sorry no, it is because of the Affordable Care Act (which some people may know as Obamacare but think that the Affordable Care Act is a better thing than Obamacare because the Affordable Care Act is affordable and Obamacare isn't even though it is the SAME THING BUT THE RIGHT WING SPIN MACHINE WANTS YOU TO THINK THAT IT IS BAD FOR YOU even though most people actually really like the provisions that the Affordable Care Act gives them), oh no sorry it is because of...(insert total B.S. excuse here because that is the current excuse that I have for being a total failure!) even though my mouthpiece and I both told everyone that after the recall elections job growth was going to take off and it actually went down instead because my policy ideas are recycled crap from the Reagan years and whatever ALEC gave me and whatever the Koch brothers told me to do. Trickle down economics was supposed to work. And it is working just like is is supposed to. We gave all of the tax breaks to the wealthy and they went wee all over the rest of you.

    Why does anyone listen to this him?

    The problem with Walker is that when you tell so many lies you can not tell where the truth ends and where the lies begin. I am actually starting to feel sorry for him. He does not know the difference between right and wrong. Even worse is that he is, and he campaigns as a "preachers kid".

    Is he going for a sympathy vote?

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  7. Even his bald spot is crooked.

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  8. Governor B.S. for short. Wear it Walker, it fits.

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  9. I hate how he blames the unskilled for not having a job! How can they attain a skill without any money? It is a Catch 22!
    I am sure that bald spot is Gov. Doyle's fault....he was probably in office when Walker was fixing the cabinet!

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  10. Scott Walker is a tool of deception and uninformed people buy it hook, line and sinker. This is extreme...but review the impact no-compromise extreme ideologues have had in the world - ISIS, Bin Ladden, Thatcher, Al Assad ect...what has lack of compromise and ethics taken those who they rule??? Poverty, violence, reduced or nullified education rights,and vivilification of innocent well intentioned civilians. Don't let Scott Walker do the same to WI for another 4 years. Don't let his fiscal irresponsibility add MILLIONS more to our deficit under Walker's watch. Don't let a college drop out determine YOUR child or grandchild ' s education. ACT. VOTE and take BACK a Wisconsin we can be proud of!

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