August 23, 2008

Right-wing busts open the latest conspiracy

Yesterday an anonymous commenter here left behind a strange deposit alleging that criticism of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce is part of an "orchestrated campaign."

Just coincidentally, I'm sure, an earlier post at Milwaukee medium-wave harlequin Charlie Sykes's so-called blog claimed as Maestro of the said "orchestration" the governor of Wisconsin:
Sore Loser Lefty of the Day — John Wiley. First: none of these attacks on WMC is coincidence. This attack, Louis Butler's, and all the other "WMC is the problem" voices out there are being orchestrated by Jim Doyle, who is still wanting to make WMC pay for not supporting him last election.
Sykes actually considers this baseless conspiratorial observation a "savvy" one. Seriously.

And sure enough, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's dependable "right-wing guy" Patrick McIlheran is all over it:
Why would Wiley do this? Sykes' blog quotes a listener who contends by email that this is all orchestrated by Jim Doyle, ticked off at WMC.

Sounds plausible. The left-wing pressure group One Wisconsin Now has been trying to get its followers to flood WMC members' inboxes with emails saying they'd better stop being so Republican.
How's that for an intuitive handspring. So, what — Jim Doyle is running One Wisconsin Now, now? Sound plausible?

"The nerve of those tradesmen," McIlheran snorts. I don't know about McIlheran, but I detect the presence of no tradesmen among WMC's Board of Directors. I see corporate CEOs, managing partners at the State's biggest law firms, bankers, and financial consultants.

No manufacturers of tinfoil hats, however, which Sykes and McIlheran and their dedicated followers must be purchasing from out-of-State.

I doubt McIlheran would find any tradesmen among the partisan hacks who orchestrate WMC political campaigns either. Unless he has in mind steamfitters and plumbers in the Nixonian sense.

And non-union ones at that, naturally.

But he would definitely find lots of tradesmen on Epic Systems's construction site near Madison working for David Cullen, who withdrew from WMC in the wake of WMC's multi-million-dollar campaign of sleazy personal attacks against Justice Louis Butler.

As far as I can tell, everybody who opposes WMC's political techniques does so for their own individual reasons and indeed, one of WMC's most energetic critics, Paul Soglin, actually supports many of its goals. In most cases, it's the means and not the ends that are at issue in this ongoing debate.

If both Sykes and McIlheran seriously believe Governor Jim Doyle is acting as the puppetmaster to the WMC critics, you'd think they could come up with some better evidence than an unsigned e-mail from one of Sykes's own devoted and clownishly "savvy" acolytes.

Then again, probably not. Because the only conspiracy in evidence here is the one between fellow Journal Communications, Inc. employees Charlie Sykes and Patrick McIlheran. Forward, meme.

More from the cappermeister.

7 comments:

capper said...

Please, if using Deutsch, es ist der Kogencapper.

On the other hand, it is fun to watch the right flop around like a fish out of water, isn't it?

illusory tenant said...

Only if Jim Doyle says so.

Tom McMahon said...

Jeez, is every Lefty Blogger in Wisconsin getting paid to run anti-WMC rants?

illusory tenant said...

We're sorry, but Jeez is unavailable at this time.

capper said...

Wait a minute! You guys are getting paid? Holy crap, why didn't anyone tell me? All this time I've been doing it because I wanted to stand up for the state. Now you tell me I coulda been getting paid?! Sheesh!

Russell said...

One Wisconsin Now is doing some great work, but it's silly to pretend that OWN, as well as quite a few of the other organizations on the left, don't have ties to the DPW and the Doyle administration.

I'm not implying that there's anything illegal happening, but there's a revolving door between the capital, the party, and a lot of the higher profile pac's, c3's, and c4's in Wisconsin. Things are the same on the Republican side of course, although they tend to use a different mix of organization types.

Both as a result of these ties, and due to the desires of certain large donors, both individual and institutional, the priorities of "independent" organizations on both sides of the political spectrum tend to align very closely with the needs and desires of the political parties and their leaders.

So while the attacks on WMC may not be a coordinated conspiracy, with the likely exception of Wiley's article they're probably not exactly a coincidence either.

By the way, I love your 666 BlogNetNews WI ranking. How did you manage that?

illusory tenant said...

Hi Russell. I don't deny that some criticism of WMC is in alignment with partisan desires, or even that some of the critics maintain party affiliations. I'm sure that's the case.

At the same time, lots of those individuals remain independent thinkers and simply recognize B.S. when they see it.

While it wouldn't surprise me if Governor Doyle concurs with much of the distaste for some of WMC's tactics, I'd like to see proof other than a random e-mail from a Sykesian drone that he's "orchestrating" it.

The BNN banner -- I just ripped it off from the website and photoshopped it.

Thanks for dropping by.