Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. As we all reflect on Dr. King's legacy, it is sure that one part of the man will be celebrated. That's the sanitized, historical King. What is too often glossed over is the subversive, prophetic King.
A war is being waged for control of our courts. And, as with all wars, there are casualties. It's said that truth is the first casualty, and that certainly was the case in this year's Supreme Court election. The campaigning was ceaselessly deceptive and misleading, often downright untruthful, and with very few exceptions unrelentingly trashy.
Four employees of a New York hedge firm and one of their spouses have contributed a total of $50,000 to Supreme Court candidate Michael Gableman in the past two weeks.
In a recent program aired on the WisconsinEye public affairs TV network, moderator John Powell questioned Wisconsin Right to Life legislative director Susan Armacost about her views on disclosure of election campaign activity. Powell, the former State Capitol reporter for Wisconsin Public Radio, asked hypothetically:
Quite a few observers of Wisconsin politics were wondering where the state's largest teachers union was in this year's Supreme Court race. All the questions were answered with this ad sponsored by the Wisconsin Education Association Council. WEAC, the voters and the condition of our state's democracy all would have been better off if the union had kept everyone wondering.
The University of Pennsylvania Annenberg Public Policy Center's latest Political Fact Check on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race focuses not only on Mike Gableman's Willie Horton ad, but also on the most recent ad by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce that mangles the truth in what's been called the "letter from the grave" case.
The Assembly spent only 27 days in session doing the public's business from the beginning of 2007 through March 13, 2008 because Wisconsin has a part-time legislature, according to Republican Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch.
Michael Gableman must be desperate. Or else he's as sinisterly cynical as they come. Gableman's smear of Louis Butler – his opening salvo in the ad wars – is offensive on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. The ad clearly and intentionally misleads viewers, playing fast and loose with the facts and leaning heavily on deceptive insinuations. And its not-so-subtle appeal to racism evokes memories of the infamous Willie Horton ad in the 1988 presidential campaign.
Even though state Supreme Court candidate Michael Gableman has been caught in a lie that he curiously will neither confess nor stop repeating, it is the phony front groups and special interest organizations that are doing almost all of the talking in this year's high court race and they are traveling the lowest of low roads.
The star of the show at today's "Unfinished Business" rally at the Capitol by the People's Legislature surely was former Department of Natural Resources Secretary and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation director George Meyer.