POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

The Cronon Brouhaha

You may recall that I took some swings at UW Professor William Cronon over his insipid and rhetorically vomitous op-ed in the NYT. Well, he's back in the news, because some people requested his communications regarding Walker and the unions, for which he apparently used his University account, which are fair game under Wisconsin's Open Records Law, proposed by I don't know what parties. I agree with Professor Jacobson wholeheartedly about this: it's disagreeable and malodorous, but compared with all of the related goings on that the press hasn't decided to don outrage over, this is pretty small potatoes.

I actually agree that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. And in this case, it does seem that fishing through a Professor's e-mails just because the law allows you to do it is bad form.

But so too is running away to another state to use the technicalities of the quorom rules to nullify the vote of millions of Wisconsin citizens. And so too is invoking the technicalities of the Open Meetings Law to claim inadequate notice to Democratic Senators who had fled the state and had announced they would not return anyway even with notice. And so too is exploiting the technical distinctions between police acting in an official capacity and police acting in a union capacity to abuse the power of the police for political purposes. And so too was the takeover of the State House, though technically legal.

You see, in a political battle there are plenty of legal technicalities which the parties use to gain advantage. Democrats have not hesitated to invoke such technicalities to their advantage, even though some of the results were atrocious.

But . . . but . . . but, PERSONAL PRIVACY!!! Yes, all of you on the left were in fits of hysterical rage over the prying (illegal) that went on into Joe the Plumber's life when he had the temerity to ask Obama a question.

This is why I've been talking about all the bad precedents, you see.

So, shut up, please.

UPDATE: More drama (and technicalities) in Madison: collective bargaining law published on legislature website. Fitzgerald says that's publication in his book, and it goes into effect tomorrow.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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