While Scott Walker was Milwaukee County Executive and then as Governor of Wisconsin, he has enjoyed the privilege of being treated with kid gloves by the corporate media. Even as he was the subject of two separate John Doe investigations into various scandalous activities, the media would often minimize or even ignore his involvement into the skulduggery.
It was only when he left this bubble to run for president that Walker started to be challenged on things. Showing that he is not ready for prime time, Walker has been quite the gaffe machine, including things like:
- Getting called out by other right wingers on his lousy job numbers
- Punting on a question about evolution
- Being unable and/or unwilling to discuss foreign policy
- Refusing to say that President Obama loves America
- Refusing to say that President Obama is a Christian
- Comparing Wisconsin protesters to ISIS terrorists and claiming that this made him qualified to deal with the terrorists
Walker has become quite flustered with the realization that he is going to have to know things, be able to answer questions that don't necessarily follow his script and - worst of all - tell the truth (or a reasonable facsimile thereof).
Apparently, Walker does not feel he is up to that challenge and so has taken on a different type of punting - by running away from those awful "gotcha" media types:
At his first public event in Wisconsin six days after that, a speech to hundreds at a state chamber of commerce event in Madison, Walker didn't take questions. His spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said that he was sick, and Walker referenced having "a little bit of a cold" before delivering a 25-minute speech.
Reporters were kept at a distance on Monday when Walker signed a right-to-work bill into law at an invite-only event outside of Milwaukee. Patrick said Tuesday that his comments at the event spoke for themselves.
The governor also left an Ag Summit in Iowa on Saturday without taking reporters' questions. A spokeswoman for Walker's Our American Revival committee said he was too busy "running from event to event."
Walker has never shown any fear in standing before the press, even under very uncomfortable circumstances.
I wonder if he has resorted to again retreating to his bunker under the state capitol so that he can rule remotely.
Ironically, Walker had written a piece of fiction, er, autobiography, called "Unintimidated." It turns out that he is anything but that.
Sadly, none of this will slow down Walker much. If he is good at anything, it is knowing how to monetize his incompetence.
