Media Curious About Scott Walker’s College Days

REUTERS/JIM YOUNG
REUTERS/JIM YOUNG

The media isn’t overly interested in certain Obama college records he’s opted to not release, but they somehow found enough curiosity to look into Republican Scott Walker’s time in school—even going so far as to find teachers willing to discuss his grades.

Blogger and law professor Ann Althouse thinks that might even be illegal, let alone highly unethical.

A French teacher is quoted, saying that Walker would come to class late and make excuses without even putting them en français. For some reason, this teacher says “I think I gave him a D-minus.” Why would any teacher disclose a former student’s grade to the press — even if he was sure he had it right? I thought that was not just unethical, but illegal.

In the end, if it was a hit piece they were after, they don’t seem to have come up with very much. Most who knew him appear to have thought well of Walker. If nothing else, it seems he wasn’t a hash-smoking bully, which is how they recently portrayed Jeb Bush.

On campus, Walker made a close group of friends, who gathered weekly to watch the iconic 1980s television drama “Thirtysomething” and cook dinner on Sunday nights. They remember Walker as fun, upbeat and cautious: If you were planning a prank, you knew not to even ask him to join in.

“Kind. He’s very kind,” said Mary Riordan, a friend who is now a speech pathologist. She could remember four medical emergencies in which Walker volunteered to drive her to the hospital…

“Scott carried me eight blocks to his car and drove me to the hospital,” Riordan said. “He became like my personal ambulance.”

But outside that group, Walker was known for something else: his political ambitions. If you met him, they were as plain as the photo of him with Ronald Reagan on his dorm-room desk.

“He would comment that, you know, ‘I’m going to be president of the United States someday,’” said Patrick Tepe, a former dorm mate who is now a dentist.

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