"The April 2 election is for the seat held for 43 years by Justice Shirley Abrahamson, one of the [Wisconsin Supreme C]ourt’s three liberals."

"If Neubauer wins, that could set the stage for liberals to gain control of the court next year, when conservative Justice Dan Kelly, like [her opponent Brian] Hagedorn an appointee of Walker, is set to face voters. But all of this depends on whether Neubauer is in fact a liberal. And that is something she absolutely refuses to admit. In fact, Neubauer, who has personal and family ties to Democrats (her husband, Jeff, is the former state party chair; her daughter, Greta, is a Democratic lawmaker), has run one of the most opaque campaigns for state Supreme Court in recent years. At the candidates’ March 15 debate before the State Bar of Wisconsin, she ducked questions, endlessly repeated her campaign talking points — that she is 'fair, impartial and independent' and backed by 345 past and present Wisconsin judges, way more than Hagedorn — and falsely claimed that the Code of Judicial Conduct prohibited her from commenting on any issue that may come before the court. (Other candidates have gone much further in answering questions about where they stand, without any knocks on the door by the Judicial Police.)"

Wrote Bill Lueders in Isthmus. Was he concerned that the "liberal" branding was needed to get out the Madison vote for Neubauer? It's completely typical for Supreme Court candidates to portray themselves as utterly neutral and devoted to the law, because that is their apt understanding of how most voters think about the role of the judge. Hagedorn also takes this neutral approach, and Lueders doesn't like that either:

Hagedorn, 41, claims that what he thinks about anything is irrelevant to his role as a judge, and that anyone who brings it up is attacking his religion. It’s a remarkably dishonest contention, especially given that he has in the past personally urged people to back the election of a conservative justice to preserve Walker’s attack on public employee unions and other explicitly political reasons.

"To preserve Walker’s attack on public employee unions" = to refrain from overturning the work of the democratically elected branches of government.

Basically, the irritating problem is that the popular conception of the role of judges — as neutral and not activist — overlaps much more comfortably with what conservative judges do, and that makes it harder to run as the liberal candidate, especially when things depend on getting out the vote and it's a low-profile election, like today's.

"It’s a question every candidate for state Supreme Court is asked: Which U.S. Supreme Court justices do you most admire?"

Writes the left/liberal Bill Lueders at the end of his Isthmus piece "Battle for the [Wisconsin Supreme] court/Bradley v. Kloppenburg is a classic contest between two visions of the role of law":

Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg...  has picked Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor. Her rival, Justice Rebecca Bradley, finds this highly objectionable. These two justices, she accuses, “espouse a judicial philosophy that believes the Constitution is a living, breathing document, that it should change to reflect changing social and political conditions.”

But here is what Kloppenburg actually says about Ginsburg and Sotomayor: “They seem to share my view of the Constitution as protecting individual rights and promoting a more fair and equal society.”

Does Bradley disagree that the Constitution calls for protecting individual rights and promoting equality? “There are individual rights that are protected under the Constitution,” Bradley replies. “But when she talks about a more equal society, that’s a very subjective statement,” one whose meaning can vary from judge to judge.

Bradley named Antonin Scalia, before his recent death, as the U.S. Supreme Court justice she most admires, along with Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. “These three justices have the judicial philosophy I follow,” she says, she says, including their embrace of originalism: the notion that the Constitution must be interpreted in light of the Founding Fathers’ original intent. She notes that Scalia exhibited qualities that surprised others, such as being “protective of the rights of criminal defendants.”

The question is not who's correct about how to interpret the Constitution. We're having an election. The people get to vote on how they think the Constitution (and all the other law) should be interpreted. Kloppenburg and Bradley have clearly stated what you need to know, Wisconsin voters. Pick!

Who's right about interpretation and who would you pick?

I'd pick Bradley — not because she's right but because I think I'll like the results.

I'd pick Kloppenburg — not because she's right but because I think I'll like the results.

You pick the one whose methodology is correct, so: Bradley.

You pick the one whose methodology is correct, so: Kloppenburg.

I'd pick Bradley, with a vague sense that she's right and I'll like the results.

I'd pick Kloppenburg, with a vague sense that she's right and I'll like the results.

These answers are making me feel that I shouldn't be voting for a state supreme court justice.

 

pollcode.com free polls

Who's behind the provision in Scott Walker's budget that empowers the UW to keep its research secret?

John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wants to know. He asked Walker's press secretary and got the answer "I will refer your question to the UW, thanks!" He asked the director of the office of research policy in the office of the vice chancellor at UW and got the answer "I really don't know... We do support the idea, but I don't know how the process began."

Maybe it's a secret, the origin of the desire to keep secrets. But, come on, track down the answer!

Fauber proceeds to talk to Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. Readers of this blog may remember that name from the old blog post "How stupid/evil was Bill Lueders's attack on Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser?"

So, anyway, Fauber proceeds to talk to Lueders, and Lueders brings up the "UW Psilocybin Pharmacokinetics Study" — research, using healthy volunteers, looking into the usefulness of psilocybin in the treatment of anxiety in cancer patients. (Here's Michael Pollan's recent New Yorker article looking very favorably at this area of research.)

Fauber quotes Lueders: "The university could be getting test subjects whacked out of their gourds on psilocybin declaring that all records related to this research are exempt from the law unless or until the results are published."

How about actually finding out who proposed the secrecy and why?

ADDED:  On February 5th, in a post written by Lueders, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council issued an "action alert" on the proposal:

This is the third attempt in recent years to shut off public access to records of university research. The first prior attempt occurred in May 2013. University officials asked the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee to insert language into the budget to shut down access to records of UW-Madison research. They were not successful. A memo to lawmakers circulated as part of this effort specifically cited the UW's desire to avoid having to respond to requests for research involving the use of animals, an area of study that even defenders believe raises ethical questions that warrant public awareness and discussion....

Current law already allows state universities, like any state or local public authority, to deny access to records if they can make the case that the harm from release outweighs the presumption that the public is entitled to access....

So the idea has been around for a few years. That makes Fauber's lead-off sentence seem a bit overheated: "No one seems to want own up to a provision in Gov. Scott Walker's biennial budget..." And it's not as if the University is disowning the the idea:

Under Wisconsin law, access to records can be denied if the university shows the harm of doing so outweighs the presumption of public access.

In a prepared statement, UW said the provision was needed for several reasons, including "to protect our competitive advantage in grant seeking and research, as well as our leadership position in academic technology transfer.... While we cannot point to a specific instance of lost intellectual property or misappropriated research, we seek to optimize our role as an economic engine for the State of Wisconsin...."

It's also expensive to deal with these requests:

[The UW's statement said that the] UW got a records request from USA Today in October, seeking all open and closed session minutes for its Institutional Biosafety Committee. It said fulfilling the request consumed an employee's entire time for nearly 31/2 months.

A year ago today... the big Wisconsin protests began.

The Badger Herald has some reflections, including one by my assemblyman Brett Hulsey ("Gov. Scott Walker dropped a bomb on the people of Wisconsin") and one by UW polisci prof Donald Downs ("The country cries out for genuine vision that goes beyond the entrenched interests and shibboleths of the present right and left.")

Here's my February 13, 2011 post about the "very low key" crowd at the Capitol that day. Typical sign, from before things blew up: "Bullying Is NOT the Answer! Fix if the Plan Needed!" I went on about the lameness of the protest:

You can see that it wasn't a very big crowd. There was an effort to get cars to honk, and when they honked, the honkees went "Wooo!"

There were no speakers and no chants.

No chants! I need to be careful what I agitate for.

There was one man — I have video but I'm not posting it — who seemed a bit disoriented, who did something that is comically easy to do in a low-key protest. He started speaking, haranguing, like he was the leader. The group of nice, tolerant people did nothing to shoo him away. It was rather touching, even as it underlined the ineffectiveness of the protest.

It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm Sunday, and our new governor has just dropped a shocking union-busting proposal that our newly Republican legislature is likely to step up and pass. This is the push-back from the unions?

Ha ha. Is this all you got? I asked.

It was the next day, the 14th, that things started getting big. All I had that day was a link to Isthmus columnist Bill Lueders who said protests would be "a colossal waste of everybody's time, and exactly the reaction Gov. Walker hopes to inspire." The protests would boost Walker?

Either they are peaceful and accomplish nothing; or they turn violent and create a massive backlash against the unions and their members. Either way, Walker wins.

My reaction was: "Wow. When did Madison lefties become so cynical about protests?"

That's all very funny in retrospect. And I was definitely wrong. Madison lefties were immensely, passionately optimistic about protests. And Lueders was right, wasn't he? The protests, in the end — we're not quite at the end yet — will have boosted Walker.

"The Left – Still Confused by School Choice."

"It is a sign of the sorry state of Wisconsin’s political discourse that a legislator drawing upon professional expertise to create non-controversial legislation to support a program that benefits his taxpayers is viewed as nefarious."

Via David Blaska, who says:

[Bill] Lueders attempts to hobble the burgeoning school choice movement by attributing its success to political intrigue rather than the increasing failure of the unionized public school model. His lengthy piece employs the conspiracy mode of journalism: pour in a spattering of unfamiliar organizations and names, suggest some back room string-pulling, hint at vote buying, and stir with implications of nefarious intention. Voila: an expose that exposes, if anything, the author's own bias.

(Click the Lueders tag if you don't remember where you saw his name before.)

What we still don't know about the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" incident: Who leaked the story to the press?

Here's something I wrote in early July, a week after the story first appeared in the media:

Judges are supposed to work out their human frailty problems outside of public view. Which is why the "chokehold" incident should never have been leaked to the press. That's why my writing on the subject has focused on who leaked and why. I would like to think that it was someone other than one of the Justices, someone who didn't understand the stakes for the prestige of the court. If it was, in fact, one of the Justices, what was the reason? Why would you damage the reputation of the court like that instead of working on resolving the problems quietly internally?

And don't tell me: Because choking somebody is a serious crime! If it were that straightforward, the choker should have been arrested — or the charge should have come to light — shortly after the incident. Instead, a politically partisan journalist broke the story 12 days later. Someone made a decision to go public through him, and that makes it look like a political tactic. Is that someone a supreme court justice? Intolerable.

Now, the investigation has taken place and we have had the opportunity to read the entire file. It does not reveal who went to the media — to Bill Lueders of WisconsinWatch.org — with the story. It does reveal that the story originally published by Lueders was shamefully inadequate, because it said only that Justice Prosser "allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument." It had nothing about Bradley's initiating the physical encounter by "charging at" him and suddenly and deliberately getting right in his personal space, possibly with a fist in his face. Either Lueders left out Bradley's initial physical aggression, or he received the story in that inadequate form. So who talked to Lueders, and did that person tell him the story with crucial details omitted to cast Prosser in the worst possible light?

Another thing we know from the investigation file is that, 2 days after the incident, Justice Bradley gave a carefully prepared speech to the assembled justices in which she framed — in her own terms — a problem that needed to be solved. Portraying Prosser as the workplace bully, she stated: "If I cannot get any assurance from you, the court, that this problem is going to be addressed, then I will go to the outside and take other means." Since she did not get that assurance, the record gives support to the inference that it was Justice Bradley who went to the media. The investigators did not ask her if she made good on her threat and took "other means" by going public through Bill Lueders, perhaps because it did not relate to whether a crime was committed, but I think the public deserves to know.

On page 43 of the investigative file, Justice Prosser seems to imply that it was Justice Bradley who leaked the story (and leaked it in a damagingly incomplete form):

Justice Prosser said when there is a charge made by a woman that a man choked you, and you leak it out to the press allover the world, and that man is on the WI Supreme Court, "You are doing absolute maximum damage to a public figure that you can do". Justice Prosser said he did not feel Justice Bradley was telling the truth because if she were, then she would have to say how she charged at him.

It was not damaging solely to Prosser. It was damaging to the entire court and to the viability of the rule of law in Wisconsin. As I wrote, back in early July: "Why would you damage the reputation of the court like that instead of working on resolving the problems quietly internally?" I'm still trying to understand how anyone who cared about the prestige and legitimacy of the Wisconsin Supreme Court would take this matter public.

But we do know, from the text of Justice Bradley's own speech, that she thought the threat of going public was something she could use for her own purposes to compel  the other justices to act as though the problem was Prosser and Prosser alone. Frame it my way, don't blame me at all, see me only as the victim, or I will take it upon myself to devastate this court's reputation. Even if Bradley was not the one who leaked to Lueders — in the all-Prosser's-fault form — that was, to put it mildly, injudicious and self-serving.

And I still have the question I had on July 3d:

Someone made a decision to go public through [the politically partisan journalist Bill Lueders], and that makes it look like a political tactic. Is that someone a supreme court justice?

I said it then, and I can't see any reason to change my opinion: Intolerable.

There never was a "chokehold" in the Wisconsin Supreme Court — so who put that word out there and why?

[NOTE: See the updates to this post, which originally relied on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report. The updates summarize the actual investigation file, which contains many reference to a "chokehold."]

This morning, the Dane County Sheriff's Department released 117 pages of records from the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" investigation. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel summarized this way:

In interviews with a detective on July 8, [Justice David] Prosser said that during an informal argument between two groups of justices Bradley "charged" him and he put up his hands to defend himself.

"Did my hands touch her neck, yes, I admit that. Did I try to touch her neck, no, absolutely not, it was a total reflex," Prosser said.

Bradley said during the argument she wanted Prosser to leave the suite of offices that serve her and her staff and confronted him to tell him to leave because she felt he was being disrespectful to Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

"You get out of my office," Bradley said she told Prosser during an interview with a detective on June 28. While saying that, she said she was "standing face to face to confront him."

So... she was "standing face to face to confront him." How did she get to the point where she was standing there? Did she "charge" him? It's not so much a discrepancy in the testimony as a time gap in the Bradley version.

Later, Bradley said, she could recall the contact of Prosser's hands on her neck but no pain or pressure that affected her breathing. She did, however, say that she had become emotional after the incident.

So Bradley concedes that Prosser's hands merely made contact with her neck, after she got into the position of being in his face.  This seems like a plain statement that there was no chokehold. But we have heard that Bradley called it "a chokehold."

On June 25, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported through an unnamed source:

Bradley felt Prosser "was attacking the chief justice," the source said. Before leaving, Prosser "put his hands around her neck in what (Bradley) described as a chokehold," the source said.

[ADDED: That story begins with a direct quote from Bradley, giving directly to the newspaper: "The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold."]

Reading that story, I wrote:

I want to know not only what really happened at the time of the physical contact (if any) between the 2 justices, but also who gave the original story to the press. If Prosser really tried to choke a nonviolent Bradley, he should resign. But if the original account is a trumped-up charge intended to destroy Prosser and obstruct the democratic processes of government in Wisconsin, then whoever sent the report out in that form should be held responsible for what should be recognized as a truly evil attack.

So what I want to know is who put out the story that Bradley said she was choked and did Bradley herself ever claim to have been choked? It sounds as though she never said that to the investigators (or it would be in the report and the MJS summary today). Did she say it to anyone else?

Let's remember that it was Bill Lueders at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism who originally broke the story of the incident. On June 25, he wrote:

"Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument in her chambers earlier this month."

Reading that, at the time, I questioned this approach to journalism:

I agreed with [Ian Millhiser at the lefty blog Think Progress] that "if it's true Prosser reached a breaking point and started strangling Bradley, he should go." But I wanted to know the whole story. It seemed to me that Lueders had given us "just the snapshot of one hard-to-comprehend instant within the longer event." I was skeptical about the version of the story Lueders had put out, because there had been no arrest and because I found it hard to picture an elderly, dignified man suddenly grabbing a (somewhat less elderly) woman by the neck.

I quoted myself saying "whoever sent the report out in that form should be held responsible for what should be recognized as a truly evil attack" and said:

When I wrote that, it did not cross my mind that the "truly evil" person might be Lueders himself.

Lueders has not yet responded to the special prosecutor's decision not to bring charges. The spotlight belongs on him right now. I want to know who put the word "chokehold" out there and why.

UPDATE: I'm now looking at the investigative file, here.  I'll note the references to choking as I encounter them.

"Why hasn't Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson held a news conference and said something along the lines of 'OK, we get it...'"

"'... We understand the public has lost respect for some justices and perhaps even come to doubt the court's credibility. We understand there are bitter divisions that occasionally explode into personal attacks. We agree with the public that physical attacks have no place in the court. More important, we understand the need to do something. We're going to spend a weekend on retreat with a mediator who will help us deal with our differences so that they don't ever again blow up into physical attacks or fistfights or chokeholds or altercations that demean this office.'"

Asks the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. How can you write that out and not immediately see the answer to your own question? Judges just don't do things like that. It would be great for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to figure out a way to look like... a court. (And by "court," I mean the ideal of a court possessed by ordinary citizens who care about the role of the courts in a democratic system.) But a news conference like that wouldn't seem judicial at all. Bringing in an outside mediator, turning yourselves into a geriatric therapy group — how can talking about that work?

Judges are supposed to work out their human frailty problems outside of public view. Which is why the "chokehold" incident should never have been leaked to the press. That's why my writing on the subject has focused on who leaked and why. I would like to think that it was someone other than one of the Justices, someone who didn't understand the stakes for the prestige of the court. If it was, in fact, one of the Justices, what was the reason? Why would you damage the reputation of the court like that instead of working on resolving the problems quietly internally?

And don't tell me: Because choking somebody is a serious crime! If it were that straightforward, the choker should have been arrested — or the charge should have come to light — shortly after the incident. Instead, a politically partisan journalist broke the story 12 days later. Someone made a decision to go public through him, and that makes it look like a political tactic. Is that someone a supreme court justice? Intolerable.

Isthmus columnist Emily Mills slimes me over the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokegate" story...

... without taking the trouble to link to or quote anything I said. Or should I say without daring to link to or quote anything I said? She cites the "the fires of victim blaming amongst Prosser supporters" and then says:

One of the more vocal among them is blogger and UW Law School professor Ann Althouse, who has gone to great and terrible lengths to excuse the alleged behavior, attack the credibility of only the anonymous sources with whom she disagrees, suggest that no arrests (yet) mean no wrongdoing, impugn the honor of Justice Bradley, and cast doubt on the very justice system of this state.

What? Emily makes no effort to back up that characterization of me. My posts about the Wisconsin Supreme Court are all collected here. Any fair reader can see that I'm endeavoring to understand the stories that have appeared in the press, critiquing the press, and asking a lot of sensible questions. It's not even fair to call me a "Prosser supporter," let alone assert that I've "gone to great and terrible lengths" to "excuse... attack... [and] impugn" anybody.

Emily Mills' dishonest assertions about me seem to reflect her desperation, her need to believe what she wants to believe, her reflex to plug her ears and go la la la la la. I mean, look at what I actually said.

When Bill Lueders first dropped the allegation that Prosser choked Bradley, I merely noted it and said "Hmmm." My second post linked to the presentation of the story on the lefty blog Think Progress, which was about the ways to oust Prosser from the court. I corrected the blogger (Ian Millhiser) for calling Prosser an "accused criminal" instead of a "person accused of a crime" — which is a point anyone who cares about the rights of the accused ought to find important — and I observed that we lacked the full context. I speculated about who Lueders's sources were and who would have the motivation to go to the press. And, most devastating to Mills's embarrassing statement about me, I said:

But sure. If Justice Prosser committed a criminal attack on another Justice, he shouldn't be on the court, even if he only lashed out after weeks or years of merciless bullying. 

In fact, if you search through my posts, you'll see that I've consistently said Prosser should resign if he choked Justice Bradley. I said:

I agree with Millhiser that if it's true Prosser reached a breaking point and started strangling Bradley, he should go. I doubt that's true, however, because there was no arrest. That's why we're getting the story in this unsourced, piecemeal form.

I'm struggling to figure out what went on. Yes, I do use the evidence of no arrest to suggest that Prosser didn't suddenly snap and launch into a strangling, but that doesn't mean I'm saying "no arrests (yet) mean no wrongdoing." It means — as anyone who reads that post with a calm, clear mind can see — that I'm guessing the situation was complex — and later reports confirm my guess.

That post is updated with a reference to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report citing allegations that Bradley initiated the physical aggression — charging at Prosser with fists raised. Emily Mills deserves to have her own language turned back on her: She has gone to great and terrible lengths to excuse Bradley's alleged behavior and to impugn the honor of Justice Prosser and blah blah blah. It's so easy to be a hot-headed partisan. And so risky! Because you make it so easy for someone to show what you are.

My next post on the subject goes into more detail examining the new material in the Journal Sentinel article. That post, before updates, concludes:

I want to know not only what really happened at the time of the physical contact (if any) between the 2 justices, but also who gave the original story to the press. If Prosser really tried to choke a nonviolent Bradley, he should resign. But if the original account is a trumped-up charge intended to destroy Prosser and obstruct the democratic processes of government in Wisconsin, then whoever sent the report out in that form should be held responsible for what should be recognized as a truly evil attack.

I boldfaced another sentence for you, Emily. My first update includes the material that, I think, has touched off panic in the local ideologues:

Everyone who thinks Prosser must to resign if he attacked Bradley ought to say that if Bradley attacked Prosser, she should resign.

I was calling for even-handedness and consistency. And that, I think, was what was truly "terrible" to people like Emily Mills. After the burst of enthusiasm that came with Bill Lueders's hit piece on Prosser, there came the horrible realization that the dreaded conservative governor Scott Walker might end up with the power to name a replacement for one of the liberal justices. I pointed that out — in the context of critiquing the decision to give Lueders the ability to break the story the way he did. I was trying to analyze the reasoning and motivation of the Lueders's unnamed sources.

This led to my next piece, analyzing the political reasoning behind Lueders's attack. There, I noted how the Lueders piece inspired lefty bloggers to go all out attacking Prosser in ways that will now — after the Journal Sentinel piece — be used to leverage arguments against Bradley. I repeated my statement "if it's true Prosser reached a breaking point and started strangling Bradley, he should go." And I called for principled consistency (addressing the Think Progress blogger Millhiser):

All right, Mr. Millhiser, I appeal to you. Let's be unanimous about this and show that our political system has not broken down. I agreed with you that if Prosser did what Lueders's story made it seem that he did, Prosser should resign. By your own standard, will you say that if Bradley initiated the physical aggression, running at Prosser with raised fists, that the integrity of our political system demands that there be unanimous calls for Bradley to be removed?

This is what's so scary and what — I think — is making these partisan local columnists tear into me. I'm not a pro-Prosser blogger. I'm a law professor blogger, probing with questions about neutral principles, the actual facts, and political interests. Lueders lured lefties into making statements that are now quite inconvenient, and they don't know how to get out of the corner they've written themselves into. Don't lash out at me. That's childish.

I'm asking hard questions that demand thoughtful, careful answers. It's been my job for a quarter of a century as a law professor to frame questions like that. And I'm an expert at seeing when people don't want to answer the questions. Answer the questions, I plead with my students before they take my exams. You can only get credit for answering the questions.

In my next post, I deal with a comment that Lueders left on that previous post, trying to defend himself. I continue to critique him and demand precision about the various assertions and what constitutes spin. The post after that has a similar theme, trying to figure out who Lueders's sources were. Here's another short post, wondering about who had the motivation to go to Lueders.

And that's just about all Emily Mills could have read before lashing out at me. Now, it's possible that she didn't read anything I wrote, because after the paragraph of hers I quoted above, she says:

I won't go into why Althouse's arguments are wrong -- someone has already done a far, far better job of it than I ever could -- but her writings on the matter provide a fairly good overview of what so many Prosser supporters are now arguing.

She links to some blogger's long screed about me. Emily, that's quite a confession! That's a far, far better job than you could ever do? How dare you write about me the way you did without going through my writings yourself? Did you check that blogger's work? Are you adopting the poor reading and reasoning as your own? You call me on fairness and you write about me the way you did? Aren't you even afraid for yourself, that you will look like a stupid hack? Aren't you even afraid for your liberal cause, that you have lost the very credibility you will need to defend Justice Bradley (and the Chief Justice) as the facts unfold? You need to show that you are interested in the truth, in principle, and that you will deal with the evidence and the serious questions. Why would you be so careless? It smells like desperation and panic.

I have waited nearly a day to respond to Emily Mills's embarrassing attack on me. Yesterday, Meade went over there to participate in the comments. He wrote:

Shame on you, Emily.  You assert and smear without so much as linking to her posts. You fail to cite the passages in which you claim she goes to "great and terrible lengths," "excuses," "attacks" credibility of sources (you happen to want to believe), "suggests," and "impugn[s]." You do this without linking or citing the specific words and sentences you want your readers to believe are objectionable. All because, what, because you say so?

Weak.

And then you dish off the dirty work of trying to substantiate your charges to a verbose blogger whose only argument in smearing Ann Althouse relies on the notion that Justice Bradley was in fact choked - a fact that is still in dispute.

I've seen you do better, Emily.

Although Mills responded within 2 hours to the previous commenter, she has not responded to Meade, and more than 13 hours have passed. I was hoping Meade's relatively gentle push-back would have been sufficient. I don't really like slamming a young writer who could do much better. Even when I have been attacked, I don't like it. Because I feel like a teacher. I'm not a political ideologue. I don't even care that much about politics. I care about truth and the ability of human beings to reason and to interact with each other.

And I generally choose not to draw attention to attacks on me. But the statement that Emily Mills made about me simply cannot be allowed to sit there festering on the website of a newspaper — Isthmus — that is widely read in my town.

It's too much like the attack from Bill Wineke that I felt I had to respond to yesterday. Both writers are attacking me as a law professor at the University of Wisconsin. I think they would like to destroy my reputation in this town, where they so casually assume the benefits of inclusion in what is a political majority here. I think they carelessly and lazily believe that local readers will eat up the sloppy attacks they're serving, because local readers agree with their political ends.

As they rush at me from across town shaking their balled-up fists in my face, I feel I must extend my fingers in self-defense, and type out an exposé of their shoddy work for a larger audience.

CORRECTION: The writer of the column "Emily's Post" isn't "Emily Post." It's Emily Mills. I've corrected all the mistaken references to "Emily Post."

Blaska attempts to extract details from Lueders about his unnamed sources in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Blaska's at the Isthmus, where Lueders worked for 25 years before moving on to the mysterious outfit that calls itself the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

Blaska asked Lueders about his “three knowledgeable sources” who supposedly had to remain unnamed to "maintain their professional relationships." Blaska said that his "inescapable conclusion" was that they were Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, "and their liberal court ally, Justice Patrick Crooks."

Lueders replied:

The sources are people we considered reliable. We very carefully represented that they alleged certain events. They did. Justice Bradley has now made the same allegation in her comments to the Journal Sentinel. Your ‘inescapable conclusion’ is incorrect. Beyond that I have nothing more to say.

It's like a logic puzzle, isn't it? It's like in "Clue" when you make an accusation like Mr. Green with the lead pipe in the conservatory. You check the secret cards, and it's the wrench, not the lead pipe, but you were right about Mr. Green and the conservatory. You slip the cards back into the little black envelope and tell the other players you were wrong. They don't know how wrong.

By the way, Blaska is making noises about a singalong in the Capitol today to rival the "Solidarity Singers who have been singing sad songs of dissent in the Capitol Rotunda for at least four months now." But for some reason, he thinks he needs a permit, and so — like that silent majority march the other day — he's proposing a silent demonstration:

Be there at 11:45 a.m. Bring your sheet music -- make 10 copies -- and signs (sans sticks). I’ll do likewise. We’ll stand silently in a group in the middle of the singers -- unless they have a permit for that day -- holding our pro-Walker signs but saying nothing. My sign will read “Can we have our Capitol back?”

What songs would the conservatives sing (if they could get permission)?

I’m thinking songs like “God Bless America,” the theme to the Flintstones, Gilligan’s Island and -- in honor of wheelchair-bound patriot Dave Zien, "Born to be Wild!" Sunny Schubert suggests the Beatles’ “Taxman.” 

Yeah, conservatives should show up and celebrate the signing of the budget bill, the momentous event that occurred yesterday. Maybe you didn't notice. It was overshadowed by the gigantic turd Lueders felt moved to drop at exactly that moment.

Lueders responds to my post about him, saying "We absolutely did not have information about an alternative version that we purposely withheld."

"When we became aware of this alternative version. we included it. We further updated the piece to reflect that Justice Bradley has refuted this alternative version as 'spin.'"

I respond in an update at the original post. The point of this post is: 1. To direct you there, 2. To give you a fresh place to comment, and 3. To pull that particular quote for the purpose of highlighting its passivity and lack of curiosity.

"When we became aware of this alternative version. we included it." Is that investigative journalism? Aren't you supposed to think critically, generate questions, and probe — not sit back and wait for further information to arrive and then let us know when you "become aware" of it? You should seek awareness.  The story you passed on was bizarre on its face. You don't even need to be an investigative journalist to have a lot of questions about it.

Me, I'm always suspicious about things that don't look right... even that period after "alternative version."

ADDED: Rereading Lueders's vague comment the next morning makes me want to be especially clear about what we know about the questions I asked in my original post. The key question that framed the post was: How many sources, total, spoke to Lueders and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel? Both spoke of having 3 sources, but since all were unnamed, we never knew whether there was overlap, and so there could have been as many as 6 or as few as 3. With Bradley later making a statement by name, we may now have 7 sources, but the total number may still be as few as 3. I still don't know whether the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel got more detail from individuals to whom Lueders spoke or whether it turned up sources that Lueders couldn't get a response from, and Lueders does not say.

Lueders wrote in his comment on my post:

We had as reported "at least three" sources for the statement that Prosser allegedly put his hands around Bradley's neck. We also spoke to others who declined to give any information about what occurred. No one said or suggested in any way, shape or form that Bradley was the aggressor, a charge that Prosser himself has not made. 

No one said... but did Lueders probe with questions? What was the political affiliation of the sources? Did they have a motivation to present incomplete facts? Did Lueders share that motivation? That would explain the failure to probe with the obvious questions that spring immediately to the ordinary reader's mind. Lueders just says that they didn't come forward spontaneously with any allegations that made Bradley look bad, they didn't suggest anything, and that was good enough for Lueders, the supposed investigative reporter.

Lueders notes that Prosser has refrained from making a specific allegation about Bradley, but Prosser did say the charge against him would be shown false. It's true, as Lueders says that Prosser hasn't specifically alleged that Bradley was the aggressor, but if you look closely at Lueders's comment, you can see that he doesn't have Bradley specifically denying that she charged at him with fists raised. He only says that she "ridiculed the contention that this was somehow her fault" and that the story was "spin." The word "spin" reflects an opinion about how people are characterizing the facts. It's not an apt way to deny the facts. Calling something spin is itself spin. And ridiculing the idea that one is at fault is also a characterization of the facts rather than an assertion of facts. That is, it's spin.

At this point, Bradley and Prosser have done the same thing: claimed innocence with respect to facts that unnamed sources have supplied.

Mr. Forward's poem.

From the "stupid/evil" post:

Did Bradley act badly?
Did Lueder delude her?
Did Prosser cross her?

How stupid/evil was Bill Lueders's attack on Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser?

Yesterday morning, I first read the story written by Bill Lueders — of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism — saying that "Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument in her chambers earlier this month."

I'm linking to the publication of the article in the Wisconsin State Journal, because it seems to be the original version of what Lueders wrote. The version that now appears at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has been — according to a note in red at the top, time-stamped 10:15 p.m. — "updated to reflect reports of a statement from Prosser denying the allegations." But "updated" does not mean that there is an update at the bottom of the original text, adding new material or noting mistakes. The article has been rewritten, so the flaws that I am going to write about here can no longer be detected.

I first read the Lueders article after it was noted in an email that went out to the Wisconsin Law School faculty. I won't quote that email, but my immediate emailed response was: "I think it would make an interesting object of study for a journalism class."

By the way, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, as you might imagine, purports to model high journalism values. It is "a first-of-its-kind alliance with public broadcasting journalists in six cities around the state, plus students and faculty of the journalism school at Wisconsin’s flagship university." Wisconsin's "flagship university" is, of course, the University of Wisconsin—Madison, my place of employment. I'm not inclined to hurt my own university, but I will make my observations as I see them. This is an object of study for the little journalism class of the internet that is this blog post.

Over the course of the day, yesterday, on lefty blogs and Twitter, there were vicious attacks on Prosser, with many opponents of Prosser (and Scott Walker) asserting that Prosser must leave the court. He should resign (or be impeached or recalled). I linked to a blog post over at Think Progress, where Ian Millhiser concluded:

Should the allegations against Prosser prove true, it is tough to imagine a truer sign that our political system has broken down than if the calls to remove him from office are not unanimous.

I agreed with Millhiser that "if it's true Prosser reached a breaking point and started strangling Bradley, he should go." But I wanted to know the whole story. It seemed to me that Lueders had given us "just the snapshot of one hard-to-comprehend instant within the longer event."  I was skeptical about the version of the story Lueders had put out, because there had been no arrest and because I found it hard to picture an elderly, dignified man suddenly grabbing a (somewhat less elderly) woman by the neck.

I first noted the Lueders article in this post, where I excerpted 2 paragraphs and wondered about Lueders's reference to his sources: "The sources spoke on the condition that they not be named, citing a need to preserve professional relationships." Lueders said he had "three knowledgeable sources," and that he had contacted Prosser for a response and that Prosser had said "I have nothing to say about it."

He repeated this statement after the particulars of the story - including the allegation that there was physical contact between him and Bradley - were described. He did not confirm or deny any part of the reconstructed account.

Later in the day, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel came out with an article that revealed more complexity to the allegations. I wrote about that post last night, noting the account of "a source" who had spoken to "several" of the justices who witnessed the incident (there were "[a]t least five"), and said that Prosser "put his hands around" Bradley's neck, without "exert[ing] any pressure," which Bradley "described as a chokehold."

The Journal Sentinel then cites "another source" that said "that Bradley attacked Prosser." Here we get the first allegation that Bradely "charged him with fists raised" and that Prosser "put his hands in a defensive posture," blocking her, resulting in hand-neck contact.

The Journal Sentinel begins a new paragraph with "Another source..." If that is not miswritten, we now have a third source — "another" and then "another" — that's the second and third source. This third source, like the second source, has Bradley coming at Prosser "with fists up" and Prosser reacting defensively. This source — which I'm seeing as the Sentinel's third source — confirms the first source in saying that Bradley called it choking at the time. This source also has a Justice (not Prosser) reacting by saying "You were not choked."

Now, we've just reviewed the stories of various unnamed sources, as reported by Lueders and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. What I want to know is: What is the total number of sources? Is it 6? 5? 4? Or is it 3? It could be only 3! That is, 2 of Lueders's sources could have been the sources who gave the fuller context, with Bradley as the aggressor. What did Lueders know and when did he know it? Did Lueders have the fists-of-fury version of the story and deliberately leave it out? Did he leave it out when he contacted Prosser for a response and recited "the particulars of the story," the "reconstructed account" that he referred to in his article.

I told you this was going to be a little journalism class. Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, will you investigate your own journalism?

Maybe Prosser had "nothing to say about it" because the "reconstructed account" Lueders recited contained the allegation that Bradley charged at him with raised fists. Prosser did comment later in the day — a day full of destructive attacks on him, which speculated about the meaning of his absence of comment. Those attacks assumed that Prosser knew the story in the form that would appear in Lueders's article. But did he? I want to know!

In my last post of the day, commenting on the Journal Sentinel article, I said: 

I want to know not only what really happened at the time of the physical contact (if any) between the 2 justices, but also who gave the original story to the press. If Prosser really tried to choke a nonviolent Bradley, he should resign. But if the original account is a trumped-up charge intended to destroy Prosser and obstruct the democratic processes of government in Wisconsin, then whoever sent the report out in that form should be held responsible for what should be recognized as a truly evil attack.

When I wrote that, it did not cross my mind that the "truly evil" person might be Lueders himself. That's something occurred to me when I woke up this morning and began thinking about the possibility that the total number of unnamed sources was only 3.

Lueders needs to tell us whether or not he knew the Bradley-as-the-aggressor story when he presented his original work of investigative journalism under the name of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. If he knew it, why didn't he present the whole context at first? And what was in the "reconstructed account" that got Prosser to decline comment? If Lueders didn't know the alternate version of the story, in which Bradley was the aggressor, why on earth didn't he know? The story he presented is so weird that any thinking person would demand to know more of the context. Did Lueders keep himself willfully ignorant of the more complicated version of the story, and if he did, why? What kind of journalism is that? Truly evil?

Now, let's go back to what Ian Millhiser said: "Should the allegations against Prosser prove true, it is tough to imagine a truer sign that our political system has broken down than if the calls to remove him from office are not unanimous." All right, Mr. Millhiser, I appeal to you. Let's be unanimous about this and show that our political system has not broken down. I agreed with you that if Prosser did what Lueders's story made it seem that he did, Prosser should resign. By your own standard, will you say that if Bradley initiated the physical aggression, running at Prosser with raised fists, that the integrity of our political system demands that there be unanimous calls for Bradley to be removed?

Finally, it must be said: If Lueders had the larger context of the story — including the allegation that Bradley was the aggressor — and he suppressed it in his original account, what he did was not only evil, shameful journalism, it was freaking stupid. All sorts of bloggers and tweeters like Millhiser committed themselves to the firm, righteous position that if Prosser did what is alleged, he must leave the court. Lueders's article lured them into stating a firm and supposedly neutral principle about physical aggression. With that principle in place, they are bound to call for Bradley's ouster, if Bradley really did take the offensive and transform the verbal argument into a physical fight.

And what are the methods of ouster? Refer to the list in Millhiser's post: 1. Resignation, 2. Impeachment, 3. Removal by Address, and 4. Recall. A newly reelected official, under Wisconsin law, cannot be recalled for a year. Unlike Prosser, who was just reelected, Bradley is subject to recall. Impeachment and removal by address are procedures that take place in the state legislature. But the state legislature is controlled by the Republicans, who aren't likely to go after Prosser. Only Bradley is vulnerable to impeachment and removal by address if the legislature is influenced by political ideology. And if either justice is removed, the replacement will be named by Governor Scott Walker, so only Bradley's ouster will change the conservative-liberal balance on the court.

See what I mean about stupid? If Lueders didn't know the allegation about Bradley after doing his investigative journalism, that was stupid. How could he investigate and not find that out?  If Lueders did know the allegation and suppressed it he was not merely stupid but evil. And make no mistake about how stupid: His article initiated a day of furious writing by liberals that threatens to hurt Bradley and the liberal interests in Wisconsin.

ADDED: I corrected a mistake in the paragraph that begins "Maybe Prosser had 'nothing to say about it'..." It was originally missing the word "had" and said "the 'reconstructed account' Lueders recited contained the allegation" instead of "the 'reconstructed account' Lueders recited did not contain the allegation..." UPDATE: It was right the first time, as someone in the comments pointed out! I uncorrected it. And now it's un-uncorrected. Sorry for the confusion!

ALSO: Instapundit says: "It’s as if the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is just a partisan hit shop or something."

IN THE COMMENTS: Bill Lueders himself responds:

As our original story reported, the Center and WPR made individual inquiries to every member of the Supreme Court...

We had as reported "at least three" sources for the statement that Prosser allegedly put his hands around Bradley's neck. We also spoke to others who declined to give any information about what occurred. No one said or suggested in any way, shape or form that Bradley was the aggressor, a charge that Prosser himself has not made. The Journal Sentinel says it found sources who contend this, so we updated the story to reflect that, but I do not know who these sources are and have no way to gauge their credibility, as I do for the sources we had.

As you know, Justice Bradley has now publicly accused Prosser of putting his hands around her neck and ridiculed the contention that this was somehow her fault....

We absolutely did not have information about an alternative version that we purposely withheld.

So, it's a mystery how the Journal Sentinel came up with the 2 sources who portrayed Bradley as the physical aggressor. Lueders does not say whether he went back to his original sources to inquire about about the truth of that story — unless Bradley was one of the original sources. Whether Bradley was one of the original sources or not, he's giving us only an ambiguous statement with respect to the question whether she did anything like charging at Prosser with raised fists. We get the conclusory assertion — not in the form of a direct quote — that she "ridiculed the contention that this was somehow her fault." Her version could be that Prosser verbal statements made her extremely angry and refused to leave her office, so it was his fault that she ran at him with raised fists. What exactly happened? Why didn't she call the police?

Lueders doesn't say how much (if at all) he probed into the context of what happened. I'm puzzled by his lack of curiosity about a story that is so inherently hard to believe. Why did the Journal Sentinel so quickly turn up a more complex version of the story? Was Lueders willfully incurious? Why did he pass on such an odd story without asking the questions that an ordinary person would instinctively ask? Or did he ask those questions? Did his sources insist that Bradley was sitting or standing peacefully and Prosser suddenly lunged at her? Or did he snap up the useful version of the story and run with it? It just doesn't add up to me.

An alternate account of the Prosser-Bradley confrontation surfaces: Did she "charge him with fists raised"?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel presents new detail to the undersourced report that everyone's talking about today:

A source who spoke to several justices present during the incident told the Journal Sentinel that the confrontation occurred after 5:30 p.m. June 13, the day before high court's release of a decision upholding a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

At least five justices, including Prosser and Bradley, had gathered in Bradley's office and were informally discussing the decision. The conversation grew heated, the source said, and Bradley asked Prosser to leave. Bradley was bothered by disparaging remarks Prosser had made about Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

Bradley felt Prosser "was attacking the chief justice," the source said. Before leaving, Prosser "put his hands around her neck in what (Bradley) described as a chokehold," the source said. "He did not exert any pressure, but his hands were around her neck," the source said. The source said the act "was in no way playful."

But another source told the Journal Sentinel that Bradley attacked Prosser. "She charged him with fists raised," the source said. Prosser "put his hands in a defensive posture," the source said. "He blocked her." In doing so, the source said, he made contact with Bradley's neck.

Another source said the justices were arguing... [and] Prosser said he''d lost all confidence in [Abrahamson's] leadership. Bradley then came across the room "with fists up," the source said. Prosser put up his hands to push her back. Bradley then said she had been choked, according to the source. Another justice - the source wouldn't say who - responded, "You were not choked."

According to the Journal Sentinel, Prosser issued a statement today, saying the accusation against him "will be proven false."

The NYT has picked up the story: "Wisconsin Judge Said to Have Attacked Colleague." The NYT article refers to the Journal Sentinel's new article this way:

Late Saturday, a separate Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report described a physical encounter in which two sources offered conflicting accounts of what happened, including one in which Justice Bradley was said to have charged at Justice Prosser.

I'm reading the Journal Sentinel's account as referring to 3 — not 2 — sources, with 2 of the 3 versions portraying Bradley as the aggressor: "the source... another source... [a]nother source...."

I want to know not only what really happened at the time of the physical contact (if any) between the 2 justices, but also who gave the original story to the press. If Prosser really tried to choke a nonviolent Bradley, he should resign. But if the original account is a trumped-up charge intended to destroy Prosser and obstruct the democratic processes of government in Wisconsin, then whoever sent the report out in that form should be held responsible for what should be recognized as a truly evil attack.

ADDED: Everyone who thinks Prosser must to resign if he attacked Bradley ought to say that if Bradley attacked Prosser, she should resign. If that happens, then the tactic of leaking the original version of the story to the press will have backfired horrifically for Democrats, as Governor Scott Walker will name the Justice to replace Bradley. If both Justices erred and must resign, that will be 2 appointments for Walker, both of whom, I would imagine, will be stronger, younger, and more conservative than Prosser, and, with Bradley gone, the liberal faction on the court will be reduced to 2, against a conservative majority of 5.

AND: Remember, the legislature has the power to impeach, so it is Bradley who is at the greater risk as the story, suppressed for 11 days, comes out. The legislature could play neutral and impeach both Prosser and Bradley, but that would give 2 appointments to Scott Walker.

ALSO: People may assume that the man is larger than the woman, but — from what I have heard — Bradley is significantly larger than Prosser. Bradley is also 7 years younger than Prosser, who is 68.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg takes the nonpartisan election in a strongly partisan direction.

At a forum at the Waukesha County Courthouse last night:

“Justice Prosser has sent a clear message that he will favor the agenda of Gov. (Scott) Walker and the Republican Legislature,” Kloppenburg said. “I will apply the law to the facts of the cases before me and decide them without prejudice.”

What is her basis for attributing a "clear message" like that to Prosser? If she doesn't have a solid basis for that statement — and I can't see what it is — how is that supposed to jibe with her self-image as a dutiful applicant of law to fact?

ADDED: The Isthmus columnist Bill Lueders, who is quite openly liberal, can't see fit to disrespect the venerable Prosser:

"This afternoon, at the Wisconsin State Capitol, I witnessed what at times appeared to be the greatest governor in the history of this or any other state..."

"... showered with affection as he announced a bold new plan to rescue Wisconsin from the brink of otherwise certain economic ruin."

Writes Bill Lueders — who is not a Walker fan — in the Isthmus:

He was feted with more than a full minute of thunderous ovation, with whistles and hooting and cheers, as he entered, and again at the end of his 30-minute address. He received long rounds of applause and a few standing Os while he spoke. The balconies seemed to be filled almost entirely with people who love him, and who applauded him at every turn.

Meade was there, and he confirms that. (And, by the way, we have some hot video that I'm working on processing right now.)

Here's the transcript of the speech. Meade describes the big standing ovation when the Governor said:

We must work together to bring our spending in line with reality. We were elected  — not to make the easy decisions to benefit ourselves — but to make the difficult ones that will benefit our children and grandchildren.

We need a commitment to the future so our children don't face even more dire consequences than what we face today.

Meade says he joined the standing ovation at this point, and that Scott Walker looked at him and gave him: 1. a smile, 2. a nod, and 3. a wink. Meade was quite pleased about that!

Madison needs to deal with its vermin - the geese.

At the Isthmus, Bill Lueders — remember him from last week? — seems disturbed by the proposal to kill the geese that are ruining our beautiful public lands.

Parks Division spokeswoman Laura Whitmore notes that the city is soliciting public input on goose management, after the brouhaha at Warner. (The eradication plan there is on hold pending further review.) One public hearing has already been held, on geese and golf courses, and another is planned, on goose management in general parklands.

"We want everyone's opinion," she says, "not just a few."

I'm sure the people who want to spare the geese will honk loudest, so I hope those of you who, like me, think the geese should be treated the way we treat rats will speak up too.

These kids today are so afraid of looking stupid that they won't get serious, collectivize, and change the world — declaims Mark Ames, spittle flying.

Stephen Green (via Instapundit) calls attention to this Mark Ames article (from October) "The Rally to Restore Vanity: Generation X Celebrates Its Homeric Struggle Against Lameness." Green cherrypicks a remark that appears at the very end:

Anytime anyone says anything libertarian, spit on them. Libertarians are by definition enemies of the state: they are against promoting American citizens’ general welfare and against policies that create a perfect union. Like Communists before them, they are actively subverting the Constitution and the American Dream, and replacing it with a Kleptocratic Nightmare.

Green — without noting that the Ames's whole article is about lameness — snarks that spitting is "lame." Instapundit grimly labels it "The Descent of the Left."

But let's look at Ames's whole article — and not be distracted by the terrible practice of spitting on libertarians. (I will not be side-tracked into blogging about what the lefties would say if the spit were flying in the opposite direction.)

Ames was reacting to the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally, which to him was the manifestation of the younger generation's need to keep an ironic distance from politics — an effort to avoid lameness. Ames wants young people to rediscover liberalism, which was "once devoted to impossible causes like ending racism and inequality, empowering the powerless, fighting against militarism, and all that silly hippie shit." (Ames himself is 45, by the way, too young to have been a real hippie, but older than the people he criticizes.)

Ames found the Rally to Restore Sanity "depressing and grotesque" — like "some kind of sick funeral party  for Liberalism, in which Liberals are led, at last, by a clown." (Aw, come on, Ames. The liberals have been led by a clown before. Just not a very funny clown.) Ames is disgusted by the way the rally-goers take pride in how smart they are because they "don’t take themselves too seriously":

That’s why they’re following a clown like Stewart, whose entire political program comes down to this: not being stupid, the way the other guys are stupid–or when being stupid, only stupid in a self-consciously stupid way, which is to say, not stupid. That’s it, that’s all this is about: Not to protest wars or oligarchical theft or declining health care or crushing debt or a corrupt political system or imperial decay—nope, the only thing that motivates Liberals to gather in the their thousands is the chance to celebrate their own lack of stupidity! Woo-hoo!

It's a liberal trope that I've been following over the past week, after Isthmus reporter Bill Lueders wrote a piece called "The Triumph of Stupidity," in which he triumphed over getting UW polisci professor to say the voters are "pretty damn stupid." It's that "What's the Matter with Kansas?" notion that liberals have — that people who don't vote for liberal candidates are too dumb to know where their own interests lie. Ames is looking at the other side of that phenomenon: Liberals themselves are caught up in their self-image of not being the stupid ones, and, Ames is saying, this obsession of theirs undercuts the old-time, serious liberal project of remaking the world in pursuit of big, broad ideals like equality.

Ames has a great insight into "why so many Gen-X/Yers turned against Obama": "he made them look stupid."  They took Obama seriously. They believed. And that set them up to look.... lame!

Ames writes many paragraphs trashing E. A. Hanks's "Dear The Left: A Breakup Letter." (She's Tom Hanks's daughter!) Hanks seems to want to separate herself from political movements and embrace something like libertarianism. Ames declaims:

If the ruling class has enormous amounts of money and power and collectivizes in a variety of billionaires’ unions and special interests unions, and your answer is, “I’ll go it alone, at least I won’t look stupid” then you’re just fucking stupid.

So it is all about not looking stupid? Anyway, after much verbiage, which I'm skipping, including the part about Bob Dylan — marvel at my restraint! — he gets to his point, which is that liberals need to cast individualism aside and get collectivized, even though that's not distanced and ironic and unserious:

Collective action is the only possible way to change shit. Large numbers of collectivized nobodies rallying to demand what they want–a better cut of the pie...

Pie! Michelle said we could have pie!

... and a better world to live in. It’s the only thing that power-elites fear and the only way to get them to negotiate.... You’ll have to stomach being around people who are lame, and who say lame things, and you’ll feel lame—so you’ll have to decide which is lamer: the fear of being lame, or forming an alliance with people lamer than you in order to struggle against people far meaner, far more greedy and destructive than the lame people you hate—people who have no qualms about being lame when they collectivize, so long as they destroy you and grab everything they want. 

In other words, don't mock the Tea Party. Get out there. Be like them. Be mockable. That's the first of 3 prescriptions Ames ends with. The third is the one Green quoted: Anathematize libertarians. (The metaphor is to spit.) And the reason for anathematizing libertarians is Ames's second prescription:  liberalism needs a big, serious goal to collectivize about and that goal is the redistribution of wealth:

[P]eople need money. Then if they have money, they need Life. Then they might be interested in “ideals” set out in the contract that this country is founded on. Ever read the preamble to the Constitution? There’s nothing about private property there and self-interest. Nothing at all about that. It’s a contract whose purpose is ...  a “more Perfect Union”—that’s “union,” as in the pairing of the words “perfect” and “union”—not sovereign, not states, not local, not selfish, but “union.” And that other purpose at the end of the Constitution’s contractual obligations: promote the “General Welfare.” That means “welfare.” Not “everyone for himself” but “General Welfare.” That’s what it is to be American: to strive to form the most perfect union with each other, and to promote everyone’s general betterment. That’s it. The definition of an American patriot is anyone promoting the General Welfare of every single American, and anyone helping to form the most perfect Union—that’s “union”, repeat, “Union” you dumb fucks. 

Ames is still playing on his audience's fear of being the stupid ones — even as he spews some crazy shit he wants us to hear as brilliant. Don't be a dumb fuck, believe me when I tell you: This individualism is a trick the billionaires are playing on you. Come together, live as One.

Ames boldly palms this off as constitutional interpretation. The "more perfect union" in the Preamble isn't the reallocation of powers between the federal government and the state governments to deal with the problems that arose under the Articles of Confederation. No, Ames's big, serious lie — and you should worry that you're a dumb fuck if you don't believe it — is that the Constitution compels us to set aside our individual pursuit of happiness and dedicate ourselves to the collective.

A Madison liberal struggles to understand the 2010 elections and runs to the classic liberal explanation: The people are stupid.

Bill Lueders's Isthmus article is subtitled "The Triumph of Stupidity." He asks UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin how people could vote the way they did, and when Franklin answers "They're pretty damn stupid," he says "Thank you, professor... That's the answer I was looking for."

Frankly, it's an answer embraced by many people I know. One of my Isthmus colleagues sent me a study showing that Dane County, which bucked the trends on Election Day, is by far the most educated county in the state. "When conservatives cut support for education," she mused, "they do so to keep people dumb and their own interests in power."

Welcome to my world: Dane County, Wisconsin, home of people who tell themselves they are the smart people and those who disagree with them must certainly be dumb. They don't go through the exercise of putting themselves in the place of someone who thinks differently from the way they do. But how would it feel to be intelligent, informed, and well-meaning and to think what conservatives think? Isn't that the right way for an intelligent, informed, and well-meaning person to understand other people? If you short circuit that process and go right to the assumption that people who don't agree with you are stupid, how do you maintain the belief that you are, in fact, intelligent, informed, and well-meaning?

What is liberal about this attitude toward other people? You wallow in self-love, and what is it you love yourself for? For wanting to shower benefits on people... that you have nothing but contempt for.

IN THE COMMENTS: Prof. Franklin responds. I front-page his comment here.