Guest Post: “Scott Walker, Martyr”

From my email inbox comes this guest post by Graeme Zielinski.

A prominent Milwaukee reporter told me a chilling story once that is vital to understanding Scott Walker.

The reporter’s wife was in a Bible study group with Walker’s wife Tonette, who was that day in charge of the discussion. The readings involved Christ’s final trip to Calvary.

According to this reporter, the group recoiled in horror when Tonette Walker sought to compare Christ’s Passion with her husband’s political fortunes, and his persecutors with those persecutors of Jesus who wreathed Him in thorns.

The women of the group were aghast, naturally, at the near-blasphemy of the suggestion but Tonette Walker persevered.

This was back when Walker was merely the executive ruining Milwaukee County and illegally running his campaign out of his public office, but the lessons hold just as true today, as Walker grasps toward the Republican presidential nomination.

In this quest, Scott Walker recently gave a speech in a Confederate state where he revealed, for the first time, that his mother and son were spit upon (just as Christ was spit upon) during the early days of the recall while at a supermarket.

Forget that his family and he have their own Praetorian Guard. Forget that this is the first time that this incident ever was mentioned, and he chose Alabama for the revelation. And forget that this is almost certainly a steaming load of horseshit.

What this is, again, is Walker (and Walker Republicans) portraying themselves as martyrs as a crass distraction by way of nimbus.

I can reveal here, for the first time, that I, too, was spit upon during the recall (in the left field smoking area of Miller Park at a Brewers game, with witnesses). That I too have received multiple death threats (some of the creepier ones which I forwarded to police). And that I have even been physically assaulted as a result of my time in the public eye, one time at a restaurant on my own block.

Some of this is the price is doing business.

Especially when the Tea Party was at its most rage-filled, Democratic lawmakers and leaders received all sorts of death threats and abuses, to say nothing of a president who is the most abused in modern time.

Part of the reason that you have not heard about the threats delivered to progressive leaders is part of a strategy that recognized that it was to the advantage of Republicans and, during the recall, Walker, to make the whole process look like a shit show. Every minute they’re talking about made-up reports of rocks or eggs being thrown or other phantom threats, they’re not talking about legitimate grievances with the harmful effects of certain policies. It didn’t help that an infinitesimal, but very real portion of otherwise peaceful protesters are assholes who pour beer on Robin Vos’ head.

Journal Communications, through its television, radio and newspaper properties, has been more than willing to portray peaceful protests as pell-mell riots (“Chaos in the Capitol!”), and to amplify every single Republican and Walker claim of victim-hood.

My favorite journalistic crime by these turds is the Republican Party of Wisconsin press release, without a named victim or a police report, that was reported AS FACT by the Journal Sentinel, claiming recall workers threw eggs at someone in a Waukesha County McDonald’s parking lot, even though there is no record of recall workers ever having worked there. Meanwhile, an actual federal conviction of a man threatening to blow up the Democratic Party of Wisconsin headquarters merited barely a paragraph in that same Walker-fied newspaper.

But another reason you have not heard about the victim-hood of progressive leaders by Walker supporters, and of lowly hacks like myself, is that it is just unseemly to play the victim.

The 100,000 people losing their BadgerCare in coming months? THEY’RE victims. The tens of thousands of rural women losing health care because of Walker’s war on Planed Parenthood? THEY’RE victims. The hundreds of thousands of job seekers who’ve seen Walker turn Wisconsin into a jobless economy in his pursuit of a failed and bizarre Tea Party ideology? THEY’RE VICTIMS.

But not if you ask Walker, who, from his time getting kicked out of student elections at Marquette University for dirty tricks, has understood that it’s easier always to play the martyr.

Especially if you’re the one doing the stoning.

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30 thoughts on “Guest Post: “Scott Walker, Martyr”

  1. Like O.J. Simpson, Walker should be out there searching for “the real spitter”. Toward that end, John “Sly” Sylvester is offering a $500 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator.

  2. Irony is lost on this one. In one part of his address to Alabama Republicans he tells them, “we need to embody courage” and then goes on to cast himself as the victim with his spitting/shouting remarks. But really the more sickening part of his speech dwelt on government dependency – yes, he was down there crowing about turning away Medicaid dollars and freeing people from Badgercare. Can anyone even think of a Wisconsin professional more personally dependent upon the advantages of public office than he? Is there anyone even close to working as hard as Walker to create dependency on WI state government in the form of special handouts, special rules, tax breaks or outright transfers of tax dollars?

  3. This is the best example of the take over by the religious right which has been in the planning stages since the very early 80’s. If they are not stopped,it will only get much worse. The problem in Wisc isn’t alone. We see it happening all across the country, TX, AZ, FL, IN and the list goes on. We took our eyes off the ball to get Obama elected but failed to see that it is the local and the state gov that are setting us up tobe ruled by their beliefs. And it’s just going to get worse!

    1. Mike-ah, was Graeme required to be in court yesterday?

      If you knew anything, you’d know the answer is no.

      Do you have anything substantive to discuss relating to the guest post itself, or are you simply interested in trolling?

    2. Oh, and it’s “should have,” not “should of.” I’d expect someone in college to know that, and it makes you look dumb when you try to attack someone with a comment that includes basic grammar errors.

    3. Now that Kramer has been elevated, it would be prudent to mute the personal attacks. No question he’s a headline waiting to be written. Plus, after two weeks of the Gov’s office and DOA lurching from gaffe, to scandal, to misstep and back again to scandal, how does the right possess any moral high ground here? And btw, you do know he wasn’t required to be there? Or is understanding the law another one of the closed book subjects on the right, like science?

  4. Graeme Zielinski is passing moral judgment? Really? How about endangering innocent lives by your reckless and irresponsible conduct? How about a blog apologizing to the people of Wisconsin? How about letting go of all the hate? How about laying off the governor’s wife, for chrissakes! How about cleaning up your own act?

    1. Dave, what’s up with taking the Lord’s name in vain?

      What happened to “gays, guns, and God?”

      Are you intentionally trying to piss off pro-life Dems, or are you just incompetent?

      OT, Obama wants to start WWIII and WIGOP’s worried about Zielinski?

      1. “Obama wants to start WWIII and WIGOP’s worried about Zielinski?”

        Obama wants to start WW3 and Blogging Blue is worried about what Zielinski thinks of the Governor’s wife?

        1. Would that be some sort of computer glitch, or maybe a personal problem or a maybe an unfortunate disability of another sort, that has apparently caused you to miss 9 subsequent new topics and almost 130 comments since you last commented on this thread on Sept 6?

          Truly sorry to hear of an apparent problem. Best of luck with taking care of it.

  5. Well, in recent years we have had a movie, “W” about a prez who misled us into two unnecessary wars and left us with the “Great Recession.”

    I can hardly wait for “W II” with a subtitle, “Walker, worse than Bush, with two unnecessary wars against union workers and the needy of Badger Care and left Wisconsin citizens with a damaged economy.”

  6. Did Graeme Zielinski post this from his jail cell? Or was he still sitting in the back of the squad car after being arrested for drunk driving? I guess we know he wasn’t in court yesterday typing this, eh? Hey Graeme and Blogging Blue (aka The National Enquirer of Wisconsin) – Check out Luke 6:42 before you post again…

    1. Kelly, Walker’s got three arrests for OWI?

      I had no idea.

      Do you have a link?

      National Enquirer? Blogging Blue is a supermarket tabloid? Why haven’t I seen it at Pick’N Save?

      Kelly, have you heard about this DNA stuff? Is “Monica’s little blue dress,” ringing any bells? If Walker can find the clothes he and his son were wearing, they can be tested for DNA. If that thug’s DNA is in a criminal data base, there will be a match.

  7. Graeme Zielinski is at a fork in the road. Either he’ll realize the futility in playing partisan pit bull and blaming Scott Walker for all the world’s problems, or he’ll crawl back into that bottle and let alcohol finish him off. I’m guessing this is the beginning of the end for Graeme Zielinski and it won’t be pretty. Let’s hope Zielinski doesn’t claim any victims in his spiral into the depths.

      1. Hey, Casper! Can you introduce me to The Ghostly Trio?

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostly_Trio

        Leave it to the mentally defective liberal moonbats to nitpick the blindingly obvious.

        But that is to be expected, as liberalism is a mental disease a cancer of the intellect. In so many words, your brain is defective, wired wrong and not operating correctly. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

        1. Ah, the old tried and true “liberalism is a mental disease” argument, coupled with the ever-popular “mentally defective liberal moonbats.”

          Positively trollish my good man…positively trollish.

        2. Actually, it’s the right wing who have the defective brains in a way. University College London found that conservatives have a larger amygdala and a smaller anterior cingulate than other people. The article I read on the study went on to state that the amygdala, thought of as the primitive brain is responsible for reflexive impulses, like fear. And the anterior cingulate is responsible for courage and optimism. Science. Wheeeeeeee!

  8. Dear Graeme Zielinski,
    You are calling me an asshole ???
    You drive drunk all the time and have been busted 3 times now ???
    Go fuck yourself, you drunk fuck.

    Ps seek rehab for your alcoholism before you hurt someone on the road
    oh and yea once again Fuck you !!!!

    1. Except you really didn’t disprove his charge with that screed. My understanding is GZ is working through his problems. Are you?

  9. Speaking of politicians as martyr, lets recall the case of State Senator Kedzie’s son, who staged an assault, played it off as victimization, and once proved as a hoax, has not had to answer for his actions.

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