Whallah! Causes of crime identified

At last, we know what causes Milwaukee's crime problem, thanks to Jessica McBride and her Waukesha Freeman column.

Everyone's talking about all of the wrong things, like jobs, poverty and guns, she says.

The McBride theory:

What should we discuss? Teenage motherhood, absentee fathers, mentorship, poor choices, moral breakdown and high school drop out rates, for starters.

So there you have it. The root causes of crime are teenage sex, deadbeat dads, and kids quitting school.

Maybe in her next column she'll discuss what to do about it. Bet not.

Incompetence, not gender, makes McBride a target

Is criticism of Jessica McBride fueled by sexism?

Her defenders frequently make that claim, but the blogger Illusory Tenant disagrees:

... it doesn't make any difference whether she's a female or not - the relentless stream of drivel at her blog mitigates strongly against her competence as a university teacher of journalism.

Whether she's demonstrating her abject ignorance of Islam, shamelessly repeating the lies of Ann Coulter, cheerleading the ridiculous credulity of her "Little Malkin," or perpetrating any number of the unintentionally risible altercations with reality consistently documented here, the effect would be identical were she male.

Wake us when it's over

The McBride-Kane feud, now longer than the Hatfields and McCoys, continues.

Today's question: Is she a female robot or not?

Yawn.

Charlie Sykes, as usual, rises to her defense.

As usual, Sykes and McBride claim rampant sexism.

Speaking of sexism, Dad29 is moved to comment:

Kane's blind, too. Rarely does one see a really cute and lissome "robot."

"Really cute and lissoms?" Dad apparently is old school and believes flattery will get you everywhere. Could he lay it on any thicker?

"No sexists here but us conservatives."

Try to remember why it's September

Continuing to out-Bush Bush on the war in Iraq, hard-liner Jessica McBride wants to know, "What's all this talk about September as a date to assess progress in Iraq?"

The media, Democrats, and, yes, even the Bush administration keep talking about "September" and, sometimes, Sept. 15, as the end date for success...

And the conventional wisdom has become "September's it." Even Bush seems to have conceded this point. He doesn't say we're withdrawing in September, but his rhetoric seems to concede that September is this big make-or-break point. "Just give it to September," the Republicans seem to be saying more and more.

Why September?

Jessica apparently was missing in action when:

The Army's top general and US ambassaqdor announced that they would do a full assessment in September.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said September would be the time to determine how long US forces should stay.

Congress passed a provision by Republican Sen. John Warner requiring reports to Congress on progress in Iraq on July 15 and Sept. 15

It's an Emily Littela moment for Jessica.

Never mind.

Punishing those who voted for McGee

McBride is horrified that Ald. Michael McGee not only might be freed on bond but actually be able to do his job and cast votes on the City Council while his trial is pending.

Her theory, apparently, is that the citizens of his district, who recently reelected him in a landslide after a recall election (in which McBride's husband worked against McGee), should be punished by not having a voice on the Council.

She tries to cover herself by including this disclaimer:

I know McGee is innocent until proven guilty. But when cops get charged with felonies, especially when the crimes relate to their jobs, they don't go back on the street and resume their law enforcement duties once they're released on bail.

I'd draw an analogy here because McGee, like a police officer, holds a position of power that involves the public trust and the public's business, on the public's payroll. Until he's convicted or acquitted, I don't think he should be casting votes about the people's business and the city's future. The allegations were too serious.

And, yes, I assume other indicted aldermen and legislators cast votes before they were convicted. That was wrong too, for the same reason, although there are differing degrees of seriousness depending on the case.

But it makes you wonder why she didn't think of this when her hero, Scott Jensen, continued to serve in the Assembly, along with other indicted Republican lawmakers, after being indicted on felony charges.

Jensen, charged almost five years ago and convicted 16 months ago, still hasn't spent a day in an orange jumpsuit. His appeal is still pending, and he's still walking the streets. He not only continued to vote while the case dragged on, but was reelected by the forgiving voters in his conservative district. Imagine that.

Seeing Al Qaida behind every bush

Jessica McBride, obsessed with Al Qaida being in Iraq, and that being the justification for US troops to remain there, will be disappointed to hear that the NY Times ombudsman or "public editor" had this to say:

... Bush mentioned [Al Qaida] 27 times in a recent speech on Iraq at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. In West Virginia on the Fourth of July, he declared, “We must defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq.”

The Associated Press reported last month that although some 30 groups have claimed credit for attacks on United States and Iraqi government targets, press releases from the American military focus overwhelmingly on Al Qaeda...

And in using the language of the administration, [The Times] has also failed at times to distinguish between Al Qaeda, the group that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an Iraqi group that didn’t even exist until after the American invasion.

There is plenty of evidence that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is but one of the challenges facing the United States military and that overemphasizing it distorts the true picture of what is happening there. While a president running out of time and policy options may want to talk about a single enemy that Americans hate and fear in the hope of uniting the country behind him, journalists have the obligation to ask tough questions about the accuracy of his statements...

Recent Times stories from Iraq have referred, with little or no attribution — and no supporting evidence — to “militants linked with Al Qaeda,” “Sunni extremists with links to Al Qaeda” and “insurgents from Al Qaeda.” The Times has stated flatly, again without attribution or supporting evidence, that Al Qaeda was responsible for the bombing of the Golden Dome mosque in Samarra last year, an event that the president has said started the sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.

For the president, an emphasis on Al Qaeda has political advantages at a time when powerful former allies, like Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are starting to back away from his war policy. Al Qaeda is an enemy Americans understand, in contrast to the messy reality of an Iraq where U.S. troops must also deal with Sunni nationalists, Shiite militias and even criminal gangs.

“Remember, when I mention Al Qaeda, they’re the ones who attacked the United States of America and killed nearly 3,000 people on September the 11th, 2001,” Bush said in the Naval War College speech.

Actually, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which came into being in 2003, pledged its loyalty to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda the next year but is not believed to be under his operational control.

What the editor is saying is that the White House focus on Al Qaida has fooled the media in reporting it incorrectly. But while he says journalists have a responsibility to "ask tough questions about the accuracy" of Bush's statements, McBride is all to happy just to repeat them, day after day after day.

McBride, of course, would dismiss the NY Times editor's views out of hand as being another example of media bias.

Which, when you think about it, is a pretty outrageous position from someone who teaches college journalism courses and is willing to trash one of the country's best newspapers because its editorial page doesn't follow the Bush script.

Because she's there

Tim Rock at Other Side of My Mouth tackles the question: Why is everybody picking on Jessica?

Rock, Mike Mathias Plaisted, and Bill Christofferson all offer slightly different takes.

We think the answer is: Because she's there.

Cutting her loose

Charlie Sykes, creator of McBridenstein, appears to have gotten some distance from his failed experiment, Brew City Brawler notes.

McBride's 'replacement' gets a blog

James Harris, being groomed by Charlie Sykes & Co. as the next black conservative, has been advanced on the up escalator. He's getting the McBride treatment, only at a slower pace. Like all deliberate speed.

Although he's only on the air two hours a week, Harris says he will begin blogging on WTMJ Radio's site next week.

His readers, commenting on it, are skeptical, and warn him repeatedly to keep backups so he doesn't lose all of his material when WTMJ pulls the plug on him.

They're referring, of course, to what happened to Jessica McBride. What they don't seem to recall is that WTMJ intended to keep her blog on its website, but McBride was in a snit (after being fired)and asked them to take it down:

WTMJ 620 AM has asked to continue my blog (that's why it's still up), but I have no interest in doing so. I will be asking them to remove my name and blog from it.

'Poor don't deserve health care'

Jef Hall nails it:

Jessica McBride: "Poor people do not deserve healthcare."

Here is the money quote from her opinion piece on the Senate health plan:

(Healthy WI) ...would give everyone in the state health care like that enjoyed by the legislators and the governor. Why should a $7-an-hour worker get benefits the same as the governor?

Tell me if there is a different way to interpret that statement?

Thank you, Jessica, for the clear window into the Republican soul (or lack thereof...).

Sexist is as sexist does

So, when she's not accusing her critics of being sexist, which she does with some regularity, how does Jessica McBride Bucher spend her time?

Um, writing sexist items like this:

Have you seen Fred Thompson's wife?

Seriously, check out his wife Do you think they'll bring her on the campaign trail or hide her? Does Fred Thompson's incredibly hot wife help him, hurt him, or neither? Despite the other pictures in the background of the link above, it definitely is a picture of his wife. I had to doublecheck.

How would she -- as a political wife herself -- have reacted if someone had asked a question like that during the attorney general's race last fall? Is there any doubt?

(Well, if someone had said Jessica was hot, rather than J.B. Hollen's wife, she may have felt compelled to post an "Omigod!" and link to it. Fortunately, no one did.)

Learn something every day

Things we wouldn't know if we didn't read Jessica McBride:

It's infected the American left (Joe Lieberman and a few clear thinking others like him aside).

Joe Lieberman is part of the American left?

Yeah, the conservative part. Or, as Howard Dean might say, Lieberman is from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

Wondering what's infected the American left? Tolerance.

Scooter Libby v. Georgia Thompson

McBride on the Libby "get out of jail free" card:

Remember that Libby was convicted of lying in a politically-motivated investigation into something that wasn't a crime. In other words, he covered up something that wasn't criminal.

Right. He was convicted of four felonies for lying to FBI agents and the grand jury. No big deal.

Here in Wisconsin, we know a woman, Georgia Thompson, who spent four months in federal prison and didn't even commit a crime. McBride thought that was perfectly OK.

Remember that the next time Ms. Law 'n Order mouths off about double standards.

UPDATE: McBride can't stop talking about Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich, as a defense for what Bush has done for Libby. Jay Bullock reminds us, however, that Libby was Rich's lawyer.

Don't like my advice? Wait 5 minutes

Jessica McBride is never short of advice on how politicians should handle -- or "frame," as she would prefer -- issues.

No matter that she has no relevant experience in that arena which would give her any credibility.

And no evidence that Republicans are foolish enough to ever take her advice.

But it certainly doesn't slow her down.

McBride outdid herself this week with two pieces of advice on the same issue, dated the same day -- and which contradicted each other.

Writing about the State Senate Democrats' universal health care plan -- which Assembly Republicans have vowed to kill -- in her Waukesha Freeman column , she said:

Republicans need to frame the issue right. When the Assembly "blocks" the universal health care program, what it's really blocking is another $15 billion in tax increases in addition to the increases already proposed.

So her advice to the GOP is to highlight the cost of the plan and posture themselves as those who are blocking a big tax hike.

But on her blog, the same day, she says:

Republicans shouldn't be a one-trick pony. Being strong on taxes is very important. But what are the Republicans' ideas for other important issues like this one, other than holding the line on taxes?...

I am suggesting that the Republicans come up with a conservative plan to deal with spiraling health care costs in this state, which are breaking governmental and other budgets.

We do need to do something about health care costs. I'd love to see the Republicans come up with a viable plan so the Democrats stop dominating the stage on this issue. Otherwise, they're just the guys (and gals) blocking tax increases. That's all well and good, but rising health care costs are a problem. So what are Republicans going to do to help fix it?

So now just blocking a tax increase isn't good enough. The GOP need to propose some solutions of their own to the health care crisis.

Jessica, of course, offers nary a one.

For someone who writes regularly about others' inconsistencies , real or imagined, that upset her, we'll say this for McBride: She is consistently inconsistent.

And don't quote Ralph Waldo Emerson in her defense. It is safe to say he would consider her not a great thinker, but a little mind.

It's quiet out there

We are not ready to abandon ship, but there is a dearth of material these days on our friend Jessica McBride.

And that's a good thing.

She seems less relevant every additional day she's off the airwaves and out of the media spotlight, which must be making her crazy. Maybe she'll have to sue somebody one of these days just to get some attention. (We suspect the lawyer in her house has told her that's a bad idea.)

Her blog has deteriorated into a takeoff of Boots and Sabers, which is notable for its lack of commentary. A recent McBride item:

Good

-- The Assembly Republican budget won't include a gas tax increase, Speaker Mike Huebsch told WisPolitics today. (Wispolitics)

Yes, that's the whole thing.

But eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, they say. So Whallah! will continue to monitor her so that you don't have to.

It's a bad job, but somebody's gotta do it.