One Plank You Won't Find In Walker's Platform

It is starting to seem like that Team Walker is becoming quite the reliable source for "Gaffe of the Day."

The latest one comes from Scott Walker himself.

Walker has been having to contend all week with the latest stupid stunt from his communications aide Michael Brickman, who put up a blog post on Walker's campaign site mocking the unemployed workers in the state by putting up a 68 page "job plan" full of empty rhetoric in size 58.5 font. This stunt got Team Walker their third round of being Keith Olbermann's "Worst person." Brickman was also the guy responsible for their first appearance as "Worst person" when he sent out a racially-tinged tweet, which was dutifully retweeted by Walker's communication director, Jill Bader.

Today, Walker was quick to throw his faithful campaign aide under the wheels of the Brown Bag Bus:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker distanced himself Thursday from a mocking posting on his gubernatorial campaign website.

"That’s one person who wrote a blog," the Republican said Thursday. "It has nothing to do with me."

Tom Barrett called Walker out on it pretty well, if I say so myself:

Responded Barrett: "The chutzpah to claim that something written by your (campaign staff) and posted on your campaign website has nothing to do with you defies any reasonable reading.

"We're not running for the high school student council. We're not sophomores in high school. This is a very important job and a very important office."

When I first saw this story, my first thought was a cynical "Sheesh! Doesn't this guy take responsibility for anything he does?" But as I thought about it more, I realized he really doesn't. Nor has he for years.

Back in 2003, due to Walker's irresponsible budgeting, the Parks Department had their budget slashed. This caused the Department to run into a $2 million deficit. To address that problem, then Parks Director Sue Baldwin, with the full endorsement of Scott Walker, decided to close the pools. This caused quite the outrage among the people. Walker did a quick about face and threw Baldwin to the wolves as he blamed her for the thing he endorsed.

Over the years, Walker would submit a county budget that he knew was dysfunctional and insufficient. He did this knowing full well that the County Board would fix the budget, which usually included a modest tax hike. When the next year's budget was due, Walker gleefully embraced the higher tax and included it in his new budget, but then would blame the County Board for it.

Another favorite ploy of Walker's, especially during election years, is to refuse to negotiate with the unions for a new contract, then blame them for his budgeting problems.

Despite receiving several warnings about the deteriorating condition of various county buildings, Walker continued with his pattern of deferred maintenance. As we see the inevitable results of such a plan, with buildings falling down or having to be closed due to being unsafe, Walker has blamed everything from ice dams to construction issues. The only thing he hasn't blamed the state of county facilities on is sunspots, apparently leaving that for Ron Johnson to use.

Likewise, Walker has refused to take responsibility for the problems going on at the mental health complex, even though they can be traced directly back to decision that Walker has made regarding those services.

All of this made me wonder if there was one thing that Walker did take responsibility for. The answer came to me pretty quickly.

When wrestling over the 2007 Milwaukee County Budget, Scott Walker made a big stink about how the County Board messed it up so much that he couldn't fix it, so he vetoed the entire budget in one fell swoop. The County Board voted and overrode his veto, effectively taking Walker out of the budgeting process that year. When it turned out that the County had a $7 million surplus that year, Walker tried to claim responsibility for it, even though he had removed himself from the budgeting process for that year.

I reckon it would be pretty safe to assume that one of the planks in Walker's platform as he continues his perpetual run for governor would be personal responsibility.