Governor McCallum’s Hypocrisy

Richard Sampson

It is indeed disingenuous of the Republicans to attack Attorney General Jim Doyle for alleged dereliction of duty for failing to involve his office in the investigation of the scandals that have arisen in the legislature.
The hypocrisy of the McCallum crowd should be apparent to all when they read the following paragraph from a news story published in the Nov. 16, 2001 edition of the ******Wisconsin State Journal*******:”Gov. Scott McCallum blocked Attorney General Jim Doyle on Friday from suing the legislature over what so far amounts to $158,549 in private legal fees paid by state taxpayers. Doyle wanted to sue to force the Legislature to stop paying private legal fees for Capitol staffers accused of illicit campaigning.” (http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejournal/caucus/7800.html)
At a time when the caucus scandals involved employees of the politicians in Madison, who now have been indicted for similar offenses, we have the Republican governor of Wisconsin attempting to cash in politically on the alleged corrupt behavior of Messrs. Chvala, Jensen, Foti et al. by pointing accusing fingers at his Democratic opponent.
One argument used by Governor McCallum had to do with the “cost” of the lawsuit.
Attorney General Doyle’s response was most appropriate: “It’s quite an argument to say I don’t care whether they’re breaking the law because somehow it’s going to cost money to stop them from breaking the law. That’s nonsense.”
And nonsense it is.
Certainly, if hypocrisy can be said to have a name, that name is Scott McCallum, presently governor of the state of Wisconsin.