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7/10/2008
Wigderson: Who watches the watchers?
The question this week is who watches the watchers? Blogger and Marquette Law Professor Rick Esenberg innocently asked if former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin was getting paid for his efforts against Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Esenberg was immediately blasted by liberal bloggers for daring to ask the question. After all, didn’t he understand how evil WMC is because they try to influence elections with large sums of money while Soglin is only trying to discover who their contributors are?
Soglin himself reacted with some indignation at his website Waxing America. After all, WMC is evil, trying to influence elections, and is just generally big and bad. Anyone who would ask who his clients are should confess their sins and concentrate on asking WMC where they get their money instead.
Of course, the answer was yes, Soglin is getting paid to fight WMC, and thereby influence future elections by attempting to dissuade WMC’s membership through boycotts from participating in WMC’s election efforts. So far, Johnsonville Sausage is marked for boycott, while J.P. Cullen was asked by Epic to end their relationship with WMC. Meanwhile, Soglin’s clients, he tells us, are nobody’s business but his own. He then claims he is not trying to influence elections.
Interestingly, the issue of Soglin’s clients doesn’t seem to faze the editor of Soglin’s biggest cheerleader, The Capital Times. Soglin is frequently quoted by the Capital Times about WMC and has written a pair of op-ed pieces for the Capital Times’ opinion section. It’s never disclosed that Soglin is a paid agent, paid to fight the influence of WMC. In response to an inquiry by me, editor Dave Zweifel told me his newspaper was not going to be intimidated by a blogger from a “silk-stocking suburb of Milwaukee” and that I should go back to trying to scare Waukesha residents away from trains.
Surely Zweifel owes his readers much more of an explanation. But since Soglin is on the side of the angels, we can expect the Capital Times to continue their call for the outing of WMC’s contributors so they can face the wrath of left-wing boycotts while the anonymity of Soglin’s clients remain protected. Soglin will maintain his favored status because his agenda neatly coincides with the Capital Times agenda, a giant mess of hypocrisy justifiable only in left-wing self-righteousness.
Credibility be damned.
James Wigderson blogs regularly at Wigderson Library & Pub.
COMMENTS
We usually make our own sausage, but now I guess I'll start buying Johnsonville some of the time.
EMILY MATTHEWS (Thu Jul 10 07:55:03 2008)
As a former board member of WMA I know how great they are and the good they do. First class. Keep going James. Go get 'em!!!!
John Hyland (Thu Jul 10 08:09:42 2008)
Now you are getting a taste of The Capital Times' infamous situational ethics. A few years back their University of Wisconsin reporter got a paying job as a lecturer at the very institution he was covering. When this stark conflict of interest was pointed out, editor Zweifel maintained that the reporter's integrity was so powerful that even a paycheck from the university could not dent his objectivity. Yeah, right.
David Blaska (Sat Jul 12 21:51:06 2008)
Why go after the small fry. Let's get someone to watch what the biggest political force in Wisconsin.
Who watches WEAC?
Scott Wallis (Wed Jul 16 18:36:20 2008)
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