Reporter still carrying water for Koschnick

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Steven Walters, reporting on this morning's Wisconsin Supreme Court decision in Phelps v. Physicians Insurance Co. of Wisconsin, Inc., reminds us that the law firm representing the plaintiffs contributed to the reelection campaign of Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson:

Abrahamson's opponent, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Randy Koschnick, said Abrahamson had taken campaign contributions from Phelps' family lawyers in the case.

Koschnick said that Abrahamson, to avoid any appearance of having a conflict of interest, should have either not participated in the case or returned the donations from those lawyers.

Abrahamson joined [Justice Ann] Walsh Bradley's dissent.

One may fairly speculate as to what Mr. Walters is implying here, by placing that final sentence on the heels of the preceding two.

Because it has more to do with reporting the result of the case than with whatever accusations Koschnick was leveling against the Chief Justice last spring (and there were many, a good number of them being either baseless or else "grossly inaccurate and misleading").

Yet Steven Walters's dispatch contains nary a hint of the political campaign contributions made to several members of the Phelps majority by attorneys working for the adversary law firm, Foley & Lardner, which represented the insurance company defendants.

Why might that be, I wonder.