Two Great Reads Lost...

The Cheddarsphere is a sadder place now with the shuttering of two great sites.

Most readers probably already know this, but it is with great sadness that I must report that Waukesha Wonk has gone silent.

Waukesha Wonk was owned and operated by Lisa Muxy, a wonderfully sweet and charming young woman who is passionate about liberal causes, but doesn't like the vitriol that has become too frequent among some people.

WW was always informative, balanced and entertaining.

Lisa's blog will be greatly missed, but fortunately, she can still be found on Twitter ( (@Muxywithmoxie ) and she will be still heading Drinking Liberally - Waukesha.  (And who knows, she might even have more time to catch a cuppa with me some day!)

The other loss for the Cheddarsphere is the archiving of Dane 101.

Dane 101 is one of the first sites I started following when I started blogging.  It was a quick way to get caught up on the biggest stories.  And the reporting by Emily Mills and Jesse Russel were impeccable.

I still remember the thrill and honor from the first time Dane 101 including Cog Dis in their "Morning Links."

I wish the crew of Dane 101 the best of luck in their future efforts and look forward to seeing them again soon.

Walker's Afraid To Run On His Own Record

Jesse Russell at Dane 101 does a good job of parsing an interview Scott Walker did with the National Review's chief water carrier, Robert Costa.

When Walker makes the silly claim that most of the protesters are from Madison, Russell accurately points out that Democrats won five of nine elections in the recent recalls. And that was from all over the state.

I would remind Walker of his time in the Northwoods when he joined Sean Duffy for a fundraiser and was outnumbered by at least 10:1 ratio.

But the thing that caught my eye was this:

Costa opines that efforts to launch a recall against Walker are "unlikely." Walker agreed, saying that he expects "intense folks" will likely still push for his recall, but "we increasingly hear that the White House doesn't want it."

Trying to tie Barack Obama is something that the right wing has been trying to do on and off since this began, most commonly on squawk radio. The reason is simple, they are hoping to play on the Obama's relatively low popularity numbers (although Walker's are actually lower) and on the latent racism that we have seen from the extremists that make up his base. They need to distract the base because Walker is not able to run on his record of hurting the working class and his raising fees explosively.

The fact is that Obama has been taking pains to keep as distant from the Wisconsin battle for rights as he can, to the point where even Zach Wisniewski at Blogging Blue expresses disappointment that Obama hasn't been here.

I am just as glad that Obama is staying away. This is a battle between the people of Wisconsin and the Koch Brothers and their figurehead governor for our rights and for what is right.  We don't really need to have Obama muddy the water and give the right something to focus on as they scramble to do whatever they can to take the attention off of Walker's poor (and about to get worse) record of one epic failure after another.