Oh, Molotov! mainstream media at it again

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON, Wis. – Molotov!

Nothing makes the Wisconsin mainstream media giddier than a good gotcha on Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Never mind that over the past four years they haven’t gotten any meaningful gotchas on the Guv, but there’s always the expose on Walker’s bald spot.

And because Walker is Walker and because he has national political aspirations, the national mainstream likes to jump on just about any Walker faux pas that comes down the pike.

This week, the BIG STORY, the mainstream’s next Walkergate, is an undated letter, reportedly at least a decade old, that Walker sent to prominent Milwaukee attorney Franklyn Gimbel.

Walker, who was Milwaukee County executive at the time, signed the letter, “Thank you and Molotov.”

The mainstream press, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to New York Magazine chortled, he really meant to say ‘mazel tov,’ the Hebrew phase that literally means ‘good destiny’ or, less literally, “good luck,” not Molotov, or something often associated with an explosive device.

To make any of this relevant or newsworthy, the media et al. tried to tie in this decade-old typo with Walker’s private meeting this week casino mogul and big shot GOP donor Sheldon Adelson in Las Vegas. Adelson dumped in big bucks into Walker’s campaign coffers during the left’s unsuccessful drive in 2012 to oust the governor in the middle of his first term.

When the “big story” broke Wednesday, Walker shook it off, chalking up the letter to a typo.

“My thumb has healed up and my bald spot is boring now, and they have to talk about things like that,” the governor said of the media buzz surrounding Mazel Tovgate.

Walker said he didn’t remember the letter. Neither did Gimbel, who told Wisconsin Reporter he certainly wasn’t offended by it.

Gimbel suspects the story picked up so much traction because people are “getting sick and tired of hearing about all of the gridlock in the political arena.”

“This is an overkilling silly article, but it’s not a big deal,” said Gimbel, who has practiced law for more than 50 years.

The mainstream gobbled up the story from the ultra-liberal, Walker-hating One Wisconsin Now, which reportedly discovered the letter in the reams of documents dumped from the now-closed John Doe investigation into Walker’s former aides and associates. The left and the mainstream feasted on that investigation for more than three years, even after their hearts were broken when the partisan probe ended without any charges of wrongdoing against the governor.

Molotov!