Weigel Won't Let Facts Get in the Way of a Good Story

Were David Weigel in Dealy Plaza on November 22, 1963, no doubt he would have been pointing at the grassy knoll.

Given that a prank call between a pseudo-journalist and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker destroys the Leftist myth that Walker carries water for the Kochs – apparently, he doesn’t even know them, or he would have known the caller wasn’t David Koch – Weigel ignores facts from a quote he uses to contrive a new conspiracy theory.

Did Scott Walker Reveal His Crisis-Ending Ruse to a Prank Caller?

I think Murphy gets a scoop here when he gets Walker to explain a ruse that could bring the Senate back in session. He’s discussing the missing Senate Democrats.

Walker’s alleged ruse, or grand conspiracy, hangs on this bit that Weigel partially puts in bold. In reality, Walker is saying privately the very thing he has been saying publicly all along. It’s what Weigel also quoted, but then ignored, that tells the whole story.

WALKER: If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum because it’s turned out that way. So we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capitol with all 14 of them. My sense is, hell. I’ll talk. If they want to yell at me for an hour, I’m used to that. I can deal with that. But I’m not negotiating.

Here you go, also from Weigel’s quote.

WALKER: You’ve got a few of the radical ones — unfortunately, one of them’s the minority leader — but most of the rest of them are just looking for a way to get out of this. They’re scared out of their minds. They don’t know what it means. There’s a bunch of recalls up against them. They’d really like to just get back up here and get it over with.

The only way what Walker is saying can be a “ruse,” is if Weigel is claiming that the Democrats are so stupid, they don’t know when they are in session and when they are not. All Walker was doing was laying out a road-map for both sides to get beyond the stalemate and move on.

Sure, some Democrats might cry they were bamboozled, because they’d have less of a problem pretending to be stupid, than seen as caving, thus abandoning the unions. But they’ve lost this battle with the people, the press and the Tea Party and it’s ultimately the voters who will hold them to account. From the sound of it, most of them would be as pleased as Walker with finding a way out.

Unfortunately, as usual, Weigel only sees one side of things – Republicans bad, Democrats good, if a bit naive, or uninformed. Far from some “ruse,” Walker was discussing a practical solution that gets both parties off the hook from a stalemate that’s not doing the Democrats any good. But don’t tell David Weigel, he’s stuck staring at the grassy knoll, convinced he can see a second gunman in the shadows somewhere up there.