McIlheran: Blogging From Egypt

Well, he must be in Egypt, since he is in denial. In a post from today, he tries to put Ed Garvey down for calling Scott Walker out on his poor execution of his duties as County Executive:

About which it's profitable to deconstruct. Sell county parks? Well, no, unless you think letting people buy coffee at Red Arrow is a sale or that contemplating disposing of never-used and now surplus land in Franklin is simply unthinkable. Cut social services? The guy has been a prime mover in providing some kind of improved housing for the mentally ill. Close swimming pools for kids? Well, no -- he proposed replacing cracked, underused wading pools with waterpark-like splash pads.

Oh, really now, Patrick? Not sell county parks? Well, I'll give you that one. Walker does want to sell off a lot of county land, but not the parks. The parks he wants to privatize to campaign donors.

And on to mental health...Yes, Walker has finally agreed to get some new housing for the mentally ill. One thing that McIlheran conveniently forgets to mention is that this comes from an almost year long expose, by his own paper, on how Walker had first abandoned the mentally ill. He also forgot to mention that Walker's poor decision making led to a crisis at the mental health complex as well, and one that he wants to make worse.

And the pools. McIlheran must have forgotten this story, again from his own newspaper, in which Walker wanted to close all but four parks. Not quite the way that McIlheran tries to spin it.

So why would McIlheran be spinning out of control like this? Well, it could just be that he is a tad put off himself, when Garvey wrote this:

Democracy is under assault. Businesses often insist that parties agree to use private arbitrators rather than a court of law; Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce wants to buy the courts; special interests nominate and fund corrupt candidates for office; and the Bradley Foundation, Charlie Sykes and GMC folks think they can operate the airports, highways, museums and schools better than those do-good civil servants.

Enough of doomsday nonsense. It is time for our governments at all levels to get together to find real solutions to huge problems. We can solve our fiscal problems if we arrive at the table in good faith and with a commitment to serve the commonwealth -- not just private wealth.

Ending government is not the answer. Electing good people to office with public campaign funding makes more sense.