Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

A municipal worker can hardly be dispassionate on Wisconsin. Look, we all know why the GOP's pushing this -- to do to big labor what Democrats have tried to do to the likes of SLIME. There's no way around it; it's political. How odd that the same con-SER-va-tives who screamed of totalitarian government under Babs and Whiny are silent when a Republican-controlled state government rams through their dream legislation. Odd, but hardly unexpected. But this is where half-a-dozen of the other kicks in with the infantile (and possibly illegal) tactics of the unions and their lackeys. Conservatives would be on firmer ground if they centered the argument on money. Rubber rooms cost money; preposterous grievance procedures cost money; generous overtime costs money. Putting it that way the unions would truly be defending the indefensible. But Gov. Walker has reminded us why the party of Lincoln is the party of Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, and he further reminds us that in the end it's just a matter of whose back is scratched. And we must view the party that brought us THE PATRIOTIC TRAITOR and THE RED-STATE SCORPION with PERMANENT suspicion. The unions must make sacrifices more than their lack of courage will permit; but they must not be for the kind of permanent reelection campaigns Democrats perfected, and which Republicans are trying to ape.