In case you need reminding, Scott Walker took the fake Koch Brothers phone call no questions asked. He figured it was just his boss checking in on how things were going!
MURPHY: What we were thinking about the crowds, was planting some trouble makers?
WALKER: Well, the only problem, because we thought about that, my only gut reaction to that would be, right now, the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this. The teachers union did some polling and focus groups, I think, and found out that the public turned on them the minute they closed school down for a couple days. The guys we have left are largely from out of state, and I keep dismissing it in my press comment saying, ‘eh, they’re mostly from out of state.’”
[…]
I’m saying hey, ‘we can handle this, people can protest, this is Madison, you know, full of the 60s liberals.’ Let them protest. It’s not going to affect us. And as long as we go back to our homes, and the majority of people are telling us we’re doing the right thing, let them protest all they want.
As Capper points out, Scott Walker finally got his wish:
I wonder if Scott Walker opened up a $350 bottle of Wine to drink with his friends at WMC and celebrate the beating of a Wisconsin citizen? i can not think of too many other things that would have made Walker happier.
Who would have ever suspected that the trouble maker Governor Walker would finally decide to plant would be the Chief of the Capitol Police, David Erwin? He's been extremely effective at creating chaos at protests (and, even more to Scott Walker's purpose, the illusion of much grander chaos), far more so than a couple of thugs with bats ever would have been.
ReplyDeleteThugs are for amateurs -- Walker is gunning to tear down whole civic institutions.