It appears to MediaPolitical that some of the liberal opinion writers at the Washington Post have now decided to start spinning what the Gov. Walker recall election is about. They want to add the reasoning of the recall to their mythology that all the polarization in politics comes from the political right and of course all fairy tales need monsters.
In this fable, it is evil 'ole Gov. Scott Walker and his ilk that have driven reasonable liberals, forced them, to such extreme measures as recalling a duly elected sitting governor from office. And these efforts to fight "radical conservatism" are completely legitimate because things like Gov. Walker's budget reforms have nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. That Act 10 was only an excuse to undermine the political power of left and render them helpless for the rest of eternity. Here, The Post's E.J. Dionne writes in his latest column on the recall;
"The attack (by Gov. Walker) on unions was carried out in the name of saving state and local government money. But there is a big difference between, on the one hand, bargaining hard with the unions and demanding more reasonable pension agreements, and, on the other, trying to undercut the labor movement altogether."
Not to be left out, The Post's "Plum Line" blogger Greg Sargent joins in. This is from a post he made adding to Dionne's column;
"Unions agreed to the fiscal concessions Walker demanded, and in return, asked that Walker not take away their bargaining rights in an effort to destroy them completely. Walker refused, even though majorities of Wisconsinites opposed eliminating those rights. In other words, unions offered a compromise but Walker insisted on their total capitulation."
Where do I begin ? Let's take the teacher's union WEAC as an example of some reasonable liberals who could be negotiated with on good terms. It is true that back during the time Act 10 was going through the legislature, the WEAC mob boss Mary Bell said she would offer concessions, but anybody with half a brain knew it was just a ruse to buy time. This is what the unions always do. Why do you think the Democrat state senators ran off to Illinois ? To buy time. It's what their union bosses told them to do. It is standard operating procedure for them, it is what they know. What do you think a work strike is about ?
Bell has little power over her union locals in that she can negotiate a statewide contract. Those contracts have to be negotiated by each union local with each district school board. Walker knew their tactics from his time as Milwaukee County executive. They will offer to negotiate, then drag out the negotiations, sometimes for years, all the while keeping the old contracts in place. If the union locals do not get their way, they simply hold out until the next election and try to pack the school boards with their own people.
The school boards they have already packed do not negotiate hard, they do not negotiate at all, they give into union demands because they are bought and paid for by the union. These local contracts were a bend over and take it with no thank you in return deal for the taxpayers. Look at Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). The union local rammed through a gravy train contract before Act 10 was passed. This was approved by a bunch of stooges on their pro union board. After the budget reforms went through, the MPS pro union board realized the mistake they had made and came back to the union local asking to open the contract and give some very minor concessions.
The Milwaukee union local gave the MPS board the middle finger and over 300 teachers had to be laid off. This is because the local doesn't care if it has to throw a few hundred members under the school bus, just so long as the teachers higher up the totem pole keep their precious free bennies. Some negotiation huh ? And do not say they suddenly became hard headed because of Walker's reforms, they were this way 20 years ago.
Sargent and Dionne must have never heard of the health insurance scam that WEAC ran for years either, the racket called WEA Trust. The union forced districts to buy their teacher's health insurance through WEA Trust, which overcharged compared to equal coverage policies from other companies by 25% or more. WEA Trust was a cash cow for the union. Do these liberal WaPo dopes honestly believe through hard but fair negotiations the WEAC mafia would have given up this racket ?
To sum this part up, there was no good faith or any real hope of having an honest negotiation with the unions because the unions do not negotiate in good faith, and they never have. They were blowing smoke, they had no intent whatsoever to give up anything. When you add in just how bad WEAC abused the taxpayers of Wisconsin, and that a lot of the state's $3 billion deficit was because of them, the only right they had earned was the right to lose their collective bargaining privileges (because collective bargaining is not a right, it is a privilege) the taxpayers had so graciously granted them years before.
If Act 10 was a power grab by Gov. Walker, then it was one grabbing back power for the taxpayer, not for the Republican Party. If the Republican Party gets some political benefit from this, the only thing the unions came blame for this is their own greed.
There is piece of Act 10 that proves another part of Walker's thinking was right. Before Act 10, government workers were forced, against their will, to be in the union and pay dues. Now, these workers have a choice to join the union or not. As the Wall Street Journal has reported, before Act 10 AFSCME had roughly 63,000 members who were forced by law to pay dues to that union. Since Act 10 granted these workers their freedom to choose, because you know with liberals it is all about choice until you don't want to do what they want you to do then they force you, less than 29,000 still remain AFSCME members. They lost over 50% of their membership in one year. Walker didn't force those folks to leave the union, they did it on their own.
If one was trying to make a political power grab, I guess you could say that Walker did it with that part of Act 10. He allowed these folks to make a free choice. I don't know about you or these dopes at The Post, but free choice sounds pretty darn American to me. Honestly, that doesn't sound like a power grab at all, it sounds more like a gamble that red blooded Americans will always choose freedom over socialism. I think AFSCME's membership rolls now prove Walker won that bet and once again if the taxpayers benefit from it, they will reward the Republican Party.
Remember the quote from Greg Sargent earlier where he said with regards to collective bargaining, "majorities of Wisconsinites opposed eliminating those rights" ? Funny that the latest Marquette Law School poll shows 55% of those Wisconsinites are in favor of limiting collective bargaining for government workers and 50% want to keep Act 10 in place as it is.
Dionne goes on in his piece to write Walker's voter I.D. laws are an "obvious way of gaming the system is to keep your opponents from voting in the next election. Rigging the electorate is a surefire way of holding on to office." E.J. then basically says any claim of voter fraud is a lie. That same Marquette poll shows 61% of Wisconsinites are in favor of requiring a government issued photo I.D. for voting.
What happened to choice ?! What happened to power to the people with you liberals ?! What happened to majority rules ?! I thought it was all about freedom man ?! Oh, I forgot, liberals are all hypocrites. Things like choice and freedom only apply when they are things liberals agree with. Freedom of speech is all good until a right winger goes on the radio and becomes successful, then it becomes hate speech. Freedom of choice is just fine when it comes to murdering an unborn baby, but not so good when it comes to having to join a union or not.
This brings us back to the liberal fable of all the political polarization comes from the right and to the conclusion of both Greg Sargent and E.J. Dionne's columns. They both try to justify the recall. First from Sargent, who is framing it more in a Wisconsin specific context;
"But there’s no question that the recall effort was a justifiable response to Walker’s overreach, and that pursuing it — even if it comes up short — was the right thing to do. The alternative — not responding to Walker’s conduct in a way that circumstances clearly warranted — would have been far worse." ( I don't know what is up with all the dashes. It is the way Sargent posted it. Maybe that is him being like a liberal all worked up and huffing and puffing.)
"Conduct in a way that circumstances clearly warranted ?' The only conduct that was clear was how the unions have behaved for the last quarter century in Wisconsin and the only thing warranted was Gov. Walker's actions. "Overreach?" Again, to the Marquette poll. Gov. Walker, with everything that has been going on with the recall, all the negative ads, etc., still has a 51% approval rating. 54% of Wisconsinites say the state is better off in the long run due to Walker's changes. 75% say that government workers should pay more for their benefits. If Walker "overreached" a majority of Wisconsinites certainly do not think so Greg and I know how much you are into those majorities. You know what even makes it worse ? Sargent reported on these same Marquette poll numbers yesterday, so he knows all this stuff he is writing is claptrap.
Now from Dionne, who is using the recall election as a launching point to say a majority of Americans disagree with what he says are polarizing politics from the right.
"This recall should not have had to happen. But its root cause was not the orneriness of Walker’s opponents but a polarizing brand of conservative politics that most Americans, including many conservatives, have good reason to reject."
This quote is proof that media liberals like Dionne have no clue what the real world is like. They live in their bubble of like minded folks who all work together in their ivory tower. They think they are reasonable people and that anyone who disagrees with them must be polarizing and divisive. This is why these liberals yell racist at even the most minor of criticisms of President Obama.They can't imagine you could have an
honest argument against any of his ideas. I guess I should say, in the childish mythological liberal fantasy land these folks live in they cannot imagine such things. To borrow a famous movie quote, "They can't handle the truth."
And it was these same mental children, who could not accept reality, living in their mythical liberal fantasy land, who when told they couldn't have cookies at 3pm every afternoon anymore that acted out like the spoiled brats they are at the Wisconsin State Capitol. Then, they brought this whole recall election on for no good reason other than their own selfishness. They are the ones who poured the poison in the magic well. They are the people who polarized the politics of Wisconsin.
Hopefully, Gov. Walker wins the support of a majority of Wisconsinites for the second time in two years and survives this recall. Perhaps then, liberals like Dionne and Sargent will come to understand it was not Walker's brand of politics that were rejected here.
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