“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” Senator Joe McCarthy 2/9/50.
Shame on Sunny Schubert, for her self-serving column, congratulating Gannett for disciplining employees for signing the recall petition. Sunny points out that “The prohibition of journalists at any level being personally involved in politics is, literally, Journalism 101.” For those that do not know, Sunny is also a columnist for the far right wing “think tank”, WPRI. WPRI has brought us such fantastical stories as the raging 62 yr old female Supreme Court Justice who charged to fiercely that the only defense was to choke her and the brave teacher named Zach who fights the evils of the education system and the teachers union with nothing but a necktie(Disney movies in the works). At least she “observes the public appearance of objectivity” by rarely disclosing this affiliation.
For instance, Sunny recently wrote a column pointing out that blogger(and fake Charles Koch) Ian Murphy wrote a post that was not flattering to our troops. She then tried to tie his 5 year old post to the Wisconsin democratic party and all elected officials. The ironic thing is that every single republican elected official, blogger and columnist wrote the exact same story that week.
Original thoughts or pushing an agenda?
Sunny gives her ok for journalists to hold opinions and vote and presumably, as a former editor, endorse candidates, but not sign a recall petition. According to Sunny, some Constitutional rights are allowed while others are not. I am glad she is entrusted to make that choice.
Then Sunny turns her attention to Judges who signed the petition. “You wouldn’t trust a judge whom you knew had already made up his or her mind on an issue – oh, wait!” Oh wait is correct. Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser came out and said when he started his campaign last year that voting him in would mean an extension of the Scott Walker Governorship and fellow justice Michael Gableman, recently headlined a republican fundraiser in Rock County. At least they did not sign the recall petitions, so we have no idea where they stand on issues.
Then Sunny turns her “outing” of signee’s on local officials. I agree that we have the right to know if elected officials signed the recall petition, but we should be able to ask them and get an honest answer. Not use the “Verify the Recall”(VTR) database. VTR was a database set up for one reason – to harass, and intimidate those who signed the recall petition. It is an online searchable database that is available to anyone, anywhere in the country and it shows the names and addresses of everyone who signed. It allows your private information to be in the hands of any criminal, predator, psychotic, etc.. in the country, no questions asked. One interesting bit of trivia though regarding VTR. One of the key people behind VTR is Larry Gamble. Mr. Gamble, from Franklin, WI, is the person who requested the open records regarding which Monona Grove teachers called in sick during the protests at the Capitol last year.
One thing that Sunny fails to mention, is that signing the recall petition does not “out” you as a liberal. With almost a million signatures there are plenty of independents, progressives, conservatives, republicans who also signed. There are people who are sick of the divisive politics that Governor Walker has brought to our state, there are others who do not like how he has devastated public education and others still who do not like losing their right to collectively bargain or maybe they feel that a “john doe” investigation of our governor , makes him not worthy of our great state. Signing the recall petition is strictly a personal evaluation of the Governor’s job performance, not an indication of a bias in anyway.
The McCarthy era was a black mark on our great state, reputations and lives were ruined. It took Congressional Hearings and a strong press corps(led by Edward R. Murrow) to call out “Tail Gunner” Joe for who the person he was to end the reign of this despicable man. Unfortunately we have neither at the moment.
While Sunny and others are trying to hang a scarlet letter on anyone who signed the recall petitions, history will show that your signature on those petitions, will be a badge of honor that would make John Hancock himself proud!
“His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men … We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it—and rather successfully.” Edward R Murrow 3/9/54
