Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Just between you and me, 'Mr. Koch' . . . .


Punking a governor like Wisconsin's Scott Walker -- not to mention exposing his real agenda -- is about as good as it gets.

Maybe not as good as punking Fidel Castro (definitely not "one of us" in the Walkerian continuum of "us" and "not us."), but pretty dang good.

From the Chicago Tribune:

On a prank call that quickly spread across the Internet, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was duped into discussing his strategy to cripple public employee unions, promising never to give in and joking that he would use a baseball bat in his office to go after political opponents.

Walker believed the caller was a conservative billionaire named David Koch, but it was actually a liberal blogger.

The two talked for at least 20 minutes a conversation in which the governor described several potential ways to pressure Democrats to return to the Statehouse and revealed that his supporters had considered secretly planting people in pro-union protest crowds to stir up trouble.

The call also revealed Walker's cozy relationship with two billionaire brothers who have poured millions of dollars into conservative political causes, including Walker's campaign last year.

Walker compared his stand to that taken by President Ronald Reagan when he fired the nation's air-traffic controllers during a labor dispute in 1981.

"That was the first crack in the Berlin Wall and led to the fall of the Soviets," Walker said on the recording.

The audio was posted on the Buffalo Beast, a Web site in New York, and quickly went viral.

Editor Ian Murphy told The Associated Press he carried out the prank to show how candidly Walker would speak with Koch even though, according to Democrats, he refuses to return their calls.


AT ONE POINT during his conversation with Not Koch, the cheesehead-in-chief was sounding quite the revolutionary, in an aristocratic, send-in-the-Pinkerton-agents-to-bust-some-union-heads Andrew Carnegie kind of way:

On the call, Walker said he expected the anti-union movement to spread across the country and he had spoken with the governors of Ohio and Nevada. The man pretending to be Koch seemed to agree, telling Walker, "You're the first domino."

"Yep, this is our moment," Walker responded.

YEP, it's your moment, all right, governor. A great big "OOPS!" moment.

Enjoy.

3 comments:

(c)2014 Richard L. Kent, Esq. (MichiganSilverback at gmail dot com) said...

So lying is OK when its done *to* Republicans? But not when its done *by* Republicans? Since when are Democrats above the moral law?

The Mighty Favog said...

I will issue a blanket condemnation of this sort of thing when we all agree it's also illegitimate for undercover cops and CIA spooks. And also for pro-life activists sticking it to Planned Barrenhood.

Until then, I find this totally amusing . . . and enlightening.

FWIW, the problem with James O'Keefe wasn't his method, but in his extreme editing . . . and in trying to sabotage Mary Landrieu's phone system. And in his general weirdness and pursuit of indiscriminate "gotcha."

He's lucky he's not in a federal pen somewhere.

(c)2014 Richard L. Kent, Esq. (MichiganSilverback at gmail dot com) said...

Oh, no question, I'm no fan of O'Keefe, not because he lied but because he's an immature idiot. But I love his gal-pal....

As for cops and intel folks--well, lying on duty is a subordinate part of the license to kill in the line of duty. (Tho I got a REAL problem with cops who lie under oath....) I suppose that therefore one can lie TO killers as well, i.e., PP.

But the Governor? C'mon....