Headlines Of The Damned

Doing their own story on the alleged continuation/reoccurrence of the McBride/Flynn affair, Matt Wild comes up with this headline:

You can read his article here.

Is McBride In Like Flynn Again?

Image courtesy of
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A couple of weeks ago, we pointed out that the former columnist/reporter/squawk radio hostess Jessica McBride had filed for a divorce from her husband, former Waukesha County DA and current hinderer of justice, Paul Bucher.

This would be the second time in the past three years that the couple found themselves in divorce court. The first time was when Bucher filed for divorce after McBride was caught with Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn and his night stick. Bucher withdrew his motion a week later, stating that they were going to try to make their tattered marriage work.

At the time, it created quite the hullabaloo, with all sorts of juicy gossip popping up, including the love letters between the adulterous paramours.

Both McBride and Flynn swore off their adulterous ways and promised that it would never happen again.

However, it is being alleged that the two love birds have been at it again:

Sunday night, 12 News revealed a letter that alleges the chief continued his affair with McBride.

McBride's husband, former Waukesha District Attorney Paul Bucher, told 12 News he sent the letter to Flynn's wife. Copies were received by both the mayor's office and the Fire and Police Commission, which released it to WISN 12 News.

It begins: "I never thought I would be writing this to you, but I feel you have to know the type of person Ed Flynn is. He has continued his affair with Jessica McBride..."

The one thing that I find curious is that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel hasn't touched this story yet. When the affair was first discovered three years ago, Dan Bice was all over it. And in recent months, the paper's been riding the police chief's behind on anything and everything the could find on him.

So why are they being quiet now?

The Best Defense Is To Be Offended

The Jessica speaks!

However, the saga of my relationship with Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn has hit the headlines again, so I suppose it’s time I say something about it. I’m a little sick of seeing my face on the TV news, and reading stuff about matters of profound privacy from people who know so little about it. In this column, I will confine myself to commenting on the media frenzy of last June, even though I suppose what everyone wants to know now is my take on the recent coverage. I’ve never written anything about this at all beyond a statement clearing up the media’s false timeline inferences.

I acknowledge that I am an imperfect human being. After the story broke in June, some people trashed me for not apologizing. Any apologies that I made (and I did make them) were made in private. I am not a public official; thus, I don’t see why I owed the public access to my apologies. The entire story felt like an invasion of privacy, and still does, right down to the “love letters” that were stolen and mailed anonymously to a newspaper which published excerpts without ever authenticating them.

McBride goes on to question why this is even a story. She points out that she is not a public official, and even though her paramour Flynn is a public official, he should be allowed a zone of privacy.

Well, it is a story because Flynn is a public official, and that he agreed to take on a job that requires him to be a pillar of the community. Adulterous affairs don't quite qualify. Neither does dishonesty, and there are some that question whether the allegations brought forth by Paul Bucher, McBride's current husband, could affect Flynn's ability to lead and to be used as a witness.

Secondly, if one wanted to be nit-picky about it, McBride is a public employee, who is being paid with tax dollars to teach journalism. If she doesn't follow the basic principles of journalistic ethics, are the taxpayers getting their money's worth?

But I do agree with McBride that any apologies she owes are private matters. She is only in the news because of who she had the affair with. If she had an affair with the plumber or someone else of less prominence, it probably would have stayed under the radar, or at worst, be the subject of some short lived giggles among her detractors.

But considering that she has been more than willing to publish personal, and even false, information about people, should she be complaining now?

Dan Bice has his coverage of it here. What is remarkable about it are some of the comments that they are allowing to stand. I wouldn't even allow them to stay up.

But the best line of McBride's column is this (emphasis mine):

Aren’t public officials entitled to a zone of privacy, especially appointed cops who are hired solely to reduce crime? Chief Flynn wasn’t the archbishop standing on a soap box spouting off about personal morality; as for me, I wrote a column supporting gay marriage.

What does gay marriage have to do with infidelity? Or is that just more evidence of the conservative mindset that all homosexual relations are nothing more than short-lived flings?

Equal treatment for lovebirds

Whether Jess and Eddie are still carrying on or not (and who cares, except Paul Bucher and Susan Flynn?), it's good to see that both are being treated fairly by their employers.

Ed Flynn is Milwaukee's chief of police, and his bosses, the mayor and the Fire and Police Commission, say they're sticking with him, affair or no affair, because he has been reducing crime in Milwaukee. Fair enough.

Meanwhile, Jessica McBride is a lecturer on journalism ethics and other matters at UW-Milwaukee's journalism department, whose executive committee recently voted 3-2 to give her what amounts to permanent status there. Presumably, that's because she has been reducing journalism ethics in Milwaukee. Fair's fair.

An Embarrassment To The Bradley Foundation

I must admit, I am a bit perplexed.

While reviewing the previous post, I was reading the JSOnline blog post about the subject and found this comment:

On top of everything else, Flynn has really embarrassed the Bradley Foundation.

Bad strategy.

I'm just wondering if the commenter meant Flynn, or if they really meant Charlie Sykes.

Deja Vu, All Over Again

He said, he said, and she's not saying.

Earlier: The Cookie Crumbled (although it appears that Flynn might not be the upright citizen I believed him to be then.)

Methinks that when this is said and done, they will all be covered in mud, instead of just two of them.

McFly And The "No-Snitch" Policy

Most of the right wing bloggers, when publicly discussing l'Affaire de McFly, if they choose to discuss it at all, are either willing to throw McBride under the bus, or are just saying "to err is human."

However, there are a small number of people that are going to bat to defend McFly, especially the Mc part of it. Their approach appears to be two-fold.

One is to attack the messenger. Mary from Freedom Eden, who is even more obsessed with the story that the average Whallah follower/reader/author. She really lays into Dan Bice, who broke the story, in this post. She starts out like this:

I get the feeling Dan Bice likes the spotlight. It's heady stuff. In the past two days, he's made TV appearances, given radio interveiws[sic], received lots of reaction and feedback from the public.

It seems he enjoys being a star reporter, sort of like a composite of Woodward and Bernstein.

Naturally, Bice continues to milk the story he chose to spill, the affair between Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn and Jessica McBride.

And then she just keeps trying to belittle Bice in any way she can think of.

The same author wrote another post which highlights the rising "no-snitch policy":

Speaking of ethics, one aspect of this story that's not receiving appropriate attention is the anonymous source, the one with access to the smoking gun communications between Flynn and McBride.

[...]

I want to know how someone gets their hands on such personal communications.

I question if it was done legally. Does Bice know?

I want to know why this anonymous source would choose to take that information to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Certainly, people are aware of less than flattering happenings in the lives of public figures and they don't run to the media with the details.

I want to know who wanted to trash Ed Flynn and Jessica McBride. Was someone out to damage Paul Bucher?

Are these politically motivated dirty tricks?

Bice claims he has no clue about his source. I wonder if he's at all curious.

Jay Bullock encountered the same phenomenon with Dad29. He expounds much better than I could here:

This is dumb for two reasons: One, it suggests that somehow evidence of a transgression (and a Class E felony!) is somehow more important than the transgression itself.

Two, and this is the key, the statement perfectly encapsulates everything that went wrong with the treatment of (alleged) lawbreaking by the Bush administration in the last decade. Wiretaps being done without a warrant in violation of the law? Who told you that? CIA black sites scattered across Eastern Europe? Let's get that reporter's notes! There are photographs out there showing detainee abuse? Stop their release!

Don't worry, gentle readers, we won't let such inane attempts of diversion distract us from our mission.

Flynn/McBride - The Musical

Father Figure by George Michael:




Mary MacGregor:



B.J. Thomas

McBride's Lame Excuse

All of southeast Wisconsin is abuzz about L'Affaire Ecarlate de McBride.

McBride came out with a short release (actually an email) of an excuse, trying to protect her "professional" (as in what does she teach, anyway?) integrity. Her excuse reads (emphasis mine):

It is because the relationship with Police Chief Flynn has unfortunately become public that this statement is released. This was a deeply personal matter between two adults who have addressed the relationship with those who need to know the details. I am grateful to my family, friends and the many other people who have expressed kindness and support. It is truly humbling.

The romantic relationship did not occur until long after the reporting and editing of the magazine article on Chief Flynn. I completed and turned in the Milwaukee Magazine story on Chief Flynn on Jan. 5, 2009 and a final edit was turned in Feb. 16. The story was in mailboxes in mid-April. At that point, my professional relationship with him had ended.

The romantic relationship with Chief Flynn began in May at Brocach’s Irish pub – four months after I completed and turned in the Milwaukee Magazine article.

Contrary to a media report, I never interviewed Chief Flynn at Brocach’s. Prior to my May social meeting with him at Brocach’s, I only met with and interviewed Chief Flynn once in December 2008 at the police department with other officers and the public information spokeswoman for MPD present. At the time of the Brocach’s meeting in May, I was an academic who no longer covered Flynn and would not ever do so again.

I ask that the media now respect the privacy of all of the parties involved.

This caused some red flags to go up, but I wasn't sure why. Call it my Whallah! instinct.

Apparently, it also apparently caused Dan Bice, who continues his coverage with this new story, some suspicions:

"The romantic relationship with Chief Flynn began in May at Brocach's Irish Pub - four months after I completed and turned in the Milwaukee Magazine article," she wrote.

That's, in short, what she put out there.

Even more interesting is what she left out.

Her statement fails to address details from a letter that she wrote to Flynn last month. In that note, the 39-year-old journalist describes how it was love at first sight during her first interview with the 61-year-old top cop. She also suggests that her feelings and attitude toward the chief affected her handling of the story.

"Perceived you instantly - knew you were a good person who does things for the right reason," the letter says. "As a result, I began to struggle with the story - having to give time to vitriolic, baseless critics."

Bice goes on to give the reason for McBride's defensive and elusive response:

Overall, the tone of Flynn's statement was contrite, whereas McBride's was combative.

The stakes for her, though, are pretty high.

McBride, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has taught ethics as part of her journalism classes. Reporters are forbidden from writing about individuals to whom they have strong personal ties.

In the next year or two, McBride will be up for "indefinite status," which is similar to tenure for academic staff members. Officials in the journalism department have declined to comment so far on the matter.

The right wing bloggers are hanging a lot on this one statement from McBride. They have started to champion her again, saying something to the effect of: "See, Jess said it's OK, so there's nothing to it. Bice and all the lefties owe her an apology!"

To which I would respectfully and simply say, "Horsefeathers!" (Actually a more apropos compound word dealing with male bovine excrement would be more likely to be uttered, but you get the idea.)

The Milwaukee Magazine story was not her last piece on Flynn. Almost everyone seems to have forgotten that McBride also has a weekly editorial column for the Waukesha Freeman.

On April 25, 2009, just one week before the supposed start of their affair, McBride wrote an editorial about the open carry controversy. In it, McBride talks about Flynn's policy on how to deal with a person who is openly carrying a gun. She is somewhat critical of the policy, but she is very careful not to mention Flynn by name, as if he is somehow not responsible for his own policies.

That editorial could help make much more sense of a phrase from her mysterious love letter, in which she wrote:

"Perceived you instantly - knew you were a good person who does things for the right reason," the letter says. "As a result, I began to struggle with the story - having to give time to vitriolic, baseless critics."

It is as if she is apologizing for having to write something critical of his policy. She wouldn't want to hurt the feelings of her paramour, now would she? After all, he completes her.

She Completes Us: What Others Are Saying

As one could have guessed, l'Affaire ecalarte de McBride was the biggest talk of the town. Here is a sampling, in no particular order:

Sykes was falling all over himself this morning, trying to present himself as the non-judgmental friend, but at the same time, taking a certain amount of glee. That was probably just relief because it wasn't him for once caught on that hot seat.

The Brew City Brawler woke up from his slumber to address this issue first with the L'Affaire de Flynn, and again tonight with a trip down memory lane with L'Affair de Bucher.

Cindy Kilkenny experiences schadenfreude (and revenge) with McBride's "gold bricking history."

Jim McGuigen finds that now McBride and Sykes now have more in common than just bloviating.

Owen Robinson is his usual verbose self: Geez.

Our own grumps finds that McBride has a new definition to the phrase: Access granted by invitation only.

Elliot Stearns is so upset, he resorts to profanity.

The Reasonable Progressive is in shock.

Asian Badger is, well, Asian Badger.

Zach of Blogging Blue is tired of her hypocrisy. (Aren't we all?)

No Runny Eggs has a fairly balanced look at the issue, except for the obligatory right wing "yeah, but, Clenis!" line.

Lady Kay refers to them as "those sex starved Republicans."

Kevin Fischer wails, "Leave those two lovebirds alone!!!"

Jason Haas apparently can't stop giggling.

Blogger Beer alternates between it's just people being human and it's all the lefties' fault.

Michael Horne, who obviously never took McBride's class, since he has those mad journalistic skillz, shares a journalist's point of view.

Rabbit asks, "Who cares?"

Badger Blogger takes a pass, but to their credit, at leaves an open thread line on the subject.

Harris Kane gives us Part I, Part II and Part III (III shows a picture of who Jessica really screwed.

Bipolar Nation goes after McBride until he buys her lies.

Nick Schweitzer blames the gays (with tongue firmly in cheek).

Jay Bullock does a storm damage assessment. (In the comments, you can see Daddio trying, and failing, to do damage control.)

Tom McMahon proves himself to be a real blockead.

Steve Hanson is downright giddy in anticipation of watching right wingers squirm.

Rick Esenberg states that no one is without sin, and should cast no stones. Then he starts lobbing rocks.

Dan Cody reminds us that these are real people with real feelings.

And, saving the best for last, Mary from Freedom Eden, decides to take the approach of attacking the messenger. Then in the comment thread, she comes out to say that their adultery is no big deal. She later follows this up with "See, Jess said it's OK! That's all the proof I need."

The Cookie Crumbled

Xoff told us at the beginning of the week about the cryptic fortune cookie. Said cookie crumbled today.

I have to admit, when I first learned of the story last night, I experienced more than a bit of schadenfreude, and I still do to a certain extent. After all, this blogsite was originally inspired by McBride's inane rants and her propensity for foolishness. And there is they way she can be so judgmental and condemning of anyone that crosses her.

But I chose not to post on it last night, partially because I was working on my usual Walker tirade, and partially because I wanted time to digest the news and process what it means.

I have seen some say that this wasn't even newsworthy, but they couldn't be more wrong. This affair included the Milwaukee Police Chief for goodness sake. And the ramifications of this are overwhelming.

The most obvious is that both of these people have caused their families great, and maybe, insurmountable pain. Yes, I am aware of the story of McBride and Bucher and how they ended up being together, but there are still the kids to think of.

Then there are the people and other entities that will end up being collateral damage from their poor decision making.

Flynn is supposed to be the leader of Milwaukee's best. How is he supposed to command respect or hand out discipline when the men and women who serve under him know that he didn't live up to the standards of a law enforcement officer.

And to think he was supposed to be on his way to really great things in the law enforcement field. Who knows what he did to that now?

And what will the community think of the police due to Flynn's behavior? In many areas, there is at best a strained relationship with the police. Does anyone really think that this will improve when Flynn gives them another reason to disrespect them, however irrational that reason might be?

And what of McBride? She was supposed to be an instructor of journalistic ethics, for pity's sake! Do all of her students get a refund now? I know I would be feeling confused and/or bitter if the person who was supposed to be teaching me the importance of ethics turned out to be such a hypocrite.

And then there is the Waukesha Freeman and Milwaukee Magazine, who she has written for. When there was a rash of columnists at the big newspapers that were being busted for plagiarism and/or for just making things up, their employers suffered. I could easily see these two going through the same kind of problems. That is even more so for MM, since Bruce Murphy took the stance of "So what?"

I would say that the real characters of these paramours came out after this issue became public.

Flynn stood up like an adult and admitted his wrong, took full blame for it, and offered a public apology. What he did was still obviously wrong, but he made the best of a bad situation. It doesn't excuse his behaviors, but it does make one more willing to forgive, if not forget.

McBride on the other hand, first said nothing, then came out with a lame missive that showed she was only feeling remorse over the damage she did to her reputation rather than the damage she caused everyone else. This shows her to not be a hypocrite, but a rather shallow, selfish woman that is not worthy of anyone's sympathy.

But then again, we've known that for some time now. Just ask the gang at the Folsom Street Festival.

Now My Hair Hurts

Yesterday, I belatedly posted a comment by Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn. His comment was about the absurdity of talk radio.

In what I'm sure is pure coincidence (*wink, wink*), Kevin Fischer posts on the same subject.

But Fischer, who is infamous for his copying entire articles, fails to manage copying the entire quote.

Then to add to his folly, Fischer includes this tough guy bit of posturing:

Chief, people pay high taxes around here and expect something in return,
including safe streets. You were hired to arrest bad guys and reduce crime. You
do that, and maybe your hair won’t feel so bad.

Well, golly gee, Fischer sure told him. But someone should tell Fischer that under Flynn's watch the murder rate is lower than it has been in two decades.

But what can one expect from a guy who makes his living on tax payer dollars, but abuses the state's vacation policy and may be blogging on the tax payer's dime.

It Makes My Hair Hurt

As reported in the All Politics blog at JSOnline and in Tim Cuprisin's column in today's paper:

"For the last 20 years, there's been a pervasive and persistent disinvestment in
government's ability to provide services. We're pitting cops against firefighters and libraries against after-school (programs). We've gone from 'no taxation without representation' to 'no taxation.' ... I don't even listen to AM radio any more. It makes my hair hurt." -- Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn, at a hearing on his 2009 budget, responding to a question from Ald. Nik Kovac on whether cutting funds for libraries and other quality-of-life services would ultimately lead to more work for police.

That is one smart man.

Frowny Face Time

Something tells me that the new Police Chief, Edward Flynn will be falling out of favor of the local right wing media tomorrow.

Welcome to Milwaukee, Chief Flynn.