"You're a Bad Player!"

On her TV show, Ellen Degeneres asked guest Aaron Rodgers what opposing players said to him during a hard-fought game. He answered, "They usually say something like, 'You're a bad player.'" Well, poor Scott Walker ran headlong, blindly into a "bad player" in the person of liberal blogger Ian Murphy who rather clumsily impersonated billionaire Republican-and specifically Walker-supporter David Koch. He asked an apparently clueless Walker a series of leading entrapment-questions and made several outrageous comments, all of which Walker incredibly responded to. The result is an embarrassing illegal tape of the conversation which has gone viral.

In Gov. Walker's defense, Koch, who was not known to him personally, was a staunch and generous supporter of the Guv during his campaign, and you do not bite the hand that feeds you, especially in politics. Hence, Walker appears to have tip-toed through this bizarre conversation, bending backwards to kiss up to his supposed benefactor. This is politics, folks. It runs on campaign money. Politicians from Obama to Bush to Doyle to Walker, et al, are very cognizant of the importance of financial support. Without it, no-one gets elected to major office.

If you listen to/read what was said, it is pretty obvious Walker was kissing the (ring) of Mr. phony-Koch, careful not to disagree or offend. Thus, when Murphy/Koch suggested the use of disrupters mixed in with the demonstrators, Walker responded that thay had considered that and discarded the idea, not as ethically and morally unpalatable, but potentially counter-productive. (I don't know for a fact that Walker would seriously consider hired guns to disrupt a generally peaceful demonstration, but what I know of him from a good friend who knows him personally, he's a pretty decent guy and definitely not stupid [except apparently on the phone].)

Likewise, the parting shot of Murphy/Koch about "crushing those (bleep)" and being flown to California for a "good time," something an experienced politician like Walker must know is clearly illegal, should have, in the eyes of numerous pundits, engendered an outraged response on Walker's part. Instead, it elicited a wishy-washy: "All right, that would be outstanding." What should he have said? "Listen, David, that is illegal and unethical, and I resent your language and insulting invitation which I summarily reject!" Uh, right.

Not in this day and age of money-soaked campaigns. As in all things, context is everything.

As Shakespeare said, "'Tis a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

P.S. Don't bother trying to phone Governor Walker. I understand he's not taking any more calls.