A well-rested governor

Right—so the gov got off. He walked. They couldn’t pin it on him.

Of course, six of his aides were convicted, including two really reprehensible guys named Tim Russell and Kevin Kavanaugh, who diverted $60,000 from a charity for veterans into Caribbean vacations.

Well, I’m from Wisconsin, as well as from the Caribbean. I understand—yes, it gets cold up there. And I understand Rachel Maddow as well, and her justifiable fury that people would scam money by using veterans—men and women who sacrifice, potentially, their lives for those of us who haven’t fought.

And I also know that real evil exists. What I don’t know is how Governor Scott Walker, who reportedly worked in an office with ten people back in the days when he was Milwaukee County executive, didn’t know that the five people he had hired were crooks. But let the Wisconsin State Journal tell the story:

The investigation, which uncovered illegal campaign contributions to Walker's campaign, illegal campaign activity by his taxpayer-funded staffers, embezzlement of veterans' funds and other misdeeds, had dogged Walker since even before he was elected governor in November 2010. Walker consistently insisted that he was not a target of the probe, even though his top aides who sat just feet from his desk — including former Milwaukee County deputy chiefs of staff Kelly Rindfleisch and Tim Russell and constituent services director Darlene Wink — all were convicted of wrongdoing.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/prosecutor-closes-john-doe-investigation-into-former-scott-walker-aides/article_5952999e-8283-11e2-b977-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz2U8Oo4dr5

The more you read about Walker, the more you realize: he combines serious sleaze with a complete lack of ethics. There was the ten-minute call with the guy he thought was David Koch, of the famous Koch brothers. And what about Walker’s solution to Wisconsin’s pesky public record laws? Allegedly, he set up a private little email system—the router was in an armoire near his desk. Oh, and then there is an email from Walker to Russell about Darlene Wink, who would be convicted of using county time to do some politicking for the state GOP.

Here’s the email:

I ask you—how much more of a smoking gun do you need?

Well, he didn’t go into the fight empty handed. He had at least 160,000 bucks to hire some good lawyers with, and he certainly did.

So the governor went free, while two of his aides went to prison. And one of them, Kevin Kavanaugh, the bookkeeper for the veterans’ group Military Order of the Purple Heart, actually is a vet with a purple heart. So what was the scam? He cooked the books—he was supposed to be giving at least 600 bucks to the wives and children of soldiers killed in action.

On one of my many trips to Wisconsin, three or four years ago, I spoke briefly to a boy in the navy. We were waiting for an elevator—he had never stayed in a hotel before. He was excited, delighted to be an adult, awed by the wonderful world he was being promised.

I looked at him, and thought, ‘he’s so young.’ And then thought, ‘he could be my son.’ Then I thought, ‘and where will he be in five years?’ There was nothing erotic, nothing sexual in my feelings for the boy, but I would have thrown myself at him to shield him from harm. I couldn’t have let my son go off to war. Not these wars, not maybe any war.

“How do they sleep at night,” I once asked Johnny, my New York lawyer brother, referring to some now-forgotten villain.

“Very well,” he said. “It’s you and I who are up at all hours of the night.”

Oh.

Somebody run over to the capitol. Nah, cancel. Of course there are no bags under Scott Walker’s eyes.