Fact Checking Wisconsin Politics

A new project from Charlie Sykes, based on things like PolitiFact and FactCheck.

But this one is called PolitiCrap. It’s a vulgar name, but then what could be more vulgar than electoral politics!

It’s a cooperative project among Wisconsin’s conservative bloggers, and it’s the absolute best place to find out whether an ad you’ve seen on the tube is true . . . or whether it’s total crap.

No Doubt Where She Stands!

Obama Lying About McCain, Limbaugh and Immigration

We are a couple of days behind the curve on this, but we can’t pass up noting that an Obama commercial intentionally tore comments by Rush Limbaugh out of context, and then claimed that McCain and Limbaugh held the same views on immigration.

This is from ABC no less.

When even ABC admits that Obama is far out of bounds, it’s really bad.

Rudy Attacks Hillary

It’s a good ad.

In the first place, it saddles Hillary with her record of supporting the Iraq War. Like John Kerry who “voted for the 85 billion dollars before he voted against it,” Hillary has done a flip-flop.

In the second place, it takes the side of General Petraeus against a smear from MoveOn.org.

While President Bush’s approval rating is in the tank, and the rating of Congress is even lower, public respect for the military is relatively high. So attacking a soldier isn’t good politics. At least not good general election politics.

(Of course it’s fine with the leftists among Democratic activists.)

How are the Democrats going to deal with ads like this? They have no good options.

They can, of course, claim that they were “lied to” by the Bush Administration.

The problem with this is that it makes Bush, whom they like to portray as a dolt, into a masterful deceiver. The Democrats would be admitting, in effect, that they were suckered. Between a successful deceiver, and somebody capable of being deceived, the American people eould probably prefer the former.

Of course, the Republicans can also pull out that footage of Bill Clinton (who until January 2001 had the same access to intelligence that Bush has now) saying that Saddam is seeking weapons of mass destruction, and will certainly use them.

Likewise with Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

One final thing for Rudy. As a pro-abortion and pro-gay agenda candidate, Republican social conservatives naturally have a problem with him.

But if Rudy can make the issue “Rudy vs. Hillary” virtually all Republicans will tend to rally around the former New York mayor.

It’s way better politics, indeed better Republican primary politics, to attack Hillary rather than attack his Republican rivals.

Linda Clifford’s Desperate Phone Calls

The Clifford campaign for Wisconsin Supreme Court must be desperate.

Fred Dooley of Real Debate Wisconsin put the state’s blogosphere onto a questionable Clifford campaign tactic.

The campaign has been making automated phone calls, saying that that she will “support public schools, their students and their employees’ rights.”

Given that there is no disclaimer saying who is paying for them, the calls are illegal. They also came with no caller ID.

The rhetoric about “public schools” looks very much like a coded way of saying that Clifford will oppose school choice, something her earlier statements clearly imply. As part of a liberal majority on the court, she would have the power to kill Wisconsin’s choice program.

Another, apparently different call, went out that gave the impression that the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel was calling and asking for support for Clifford.

The liberal Journal-Sentinel did endorse Clifford, but didn’t take kindly to the calls, labeling them “misleading” and having their lawyer call the Clifford campaign on Monday afternoon to demand that they be stopped.

Clifford, who has been attacking the judicial ethics of her opponent, Annette Ziegler, has run a stunningly unethical campaign.

Ziegler Lenient on a Sex Offender?

Most of the cases in which the Linda Clifford campaign has accused Annette Ziegler of being soft on sex offenders hardly need any further analysis. But let’s look at one that is featured in a Linda Clifford campaign ad.

From FactCheck.org:

No Prison Time for a Sex Offender?

The Greater Wisconsin Committee, a state-wide political action committee funded by labor, education and healthcare PACs, attacked the tough-on-crime image that’s been a staple of Ziegler’s own ads with a spot claiming that Ziegler gave a convicted sex offender a lighter sentence than even his own defense attorney asked. The ad is true only if the sentence is measured strictly by years in prison. The whole story is more complicated.

In December 1998 a jury found Gary Tate guilty of sexually assaulting his step-daughter repeatedly during a three-year period. Ziegler sentenced Tate to 25 years in prison but stayed the sentence, instead giving him a year in county jail and 20 years’ probation conditioned upon Tate successfully completing a treatment program for sexual offenders. At the time, admission of guilt was a requirement of the treatment program.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Ziegler made this comment at the sentencing:

MJ-S: “I want very much to punish the defendant for what he did,” Ziegler said. “I want very much to protect the community.” Equally important is providing treatment “so this never happens to anyone else again,” Ziegler said.

Tate filed a motion asking for a new trial, but Ziegler denied it. Tate refused to admit he was guilty, which meant he automatically flunked his sexual-offender treatment. His probation was revoked as a result, and he began serving his 25-year prison sentence.

In November 2002, Tate appealed his probation revocation. The case went to the state Supreme Court. Tate’s lawyers argued that since his sexual-offender treatment required him to incriminate himself and thereby forfeit any possibility of future appeals, the revocation of his parole was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled in Tate’s favor. He was released from prison and is living in Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin Sex-Offender Registry.

The ad is misleading in implying that Ziegler sentenced Tate to nothing more than a year in county jail. It would have been accurate to say that Tate became a free man just four years after his conviction as a result of Ziegler’s sentence.

So we ask, as we did in a previous post: do liberals see anything ethically wrong with campaign ads that intentionally try to mislead?

Linda Clifford: Sleazy, Misleading Campaign Ads

One of the more bizarre things about the very expensive and rather dirty race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is the fact that the liberal (Linda Clifford) has been accusing the conservative (Annette Ziegler)of being soft on sex offenders.

This isn’t merely a matter of opinion. It’s simply untrue, and Clifford is being intentionally misleading.

The facts of the case are outlined in this press release from the Ziegler campaign.

West Bend – Linda Clifford’s campaign has been caught lying again. In both a press release and new attack television commercial, the Clifford campaign deliberately attempts to mislead voters.

Clifford’s campaign claims that nearly 60% of the child sex offenders (1st and 2nd Degree Sexual Assault and Repeated Sexual Assault of a Child) sentenced by Judge Ziegler were given a year in jail or less. However, they include the following cases in their calculation:

• 1997CF000270 – The sentence in that case was handed down by Judge Richard Becker, not Judge Ziegler.
• 2001CF000271 – The defendant in this case was sentenced in multiple cases (see 2001CF000359) on March 15, 2002 and was given 25 years in prison by Judge Ziegler for his crimes.
• 2000CF000432 – The defendant in this case was convicted of a misdemeanor and not eligible for prison.

In eight of the nine remaining cases Clifford cites, Judge Ziegler simply was signing off on the district attorney’s joint agreement.

“Linda Clifford should be ashamed of herself for launching these desperate attacks against a judge who is known for her tough sentences of sex predators,” said Sheriff Maury Straub, who is one of the 54 sheriffs endorsing Judge Ziegler. “Linda Clifford has a clear problem with telling the truth and voters are going to reject her dishonest campaign on Tuesday.”

According to the Wisconsin Sentencing Commission, the median prison sentence given for Repeated Sexual Assault of the Same Child (948.025(1)) is 10 years. Judge Ziegler’s median sentence for the same crime is 20 years in prison – twice the statewide number.

Additionally, since 2000, Ziegler has been substituted ten times in child sex offender cases. During that same period of time, the other three judges in Washington County were only substituted for in a cumulative total of four child sex offense cases. That means Judge Ziegler has been substituted on over twice as many times in child sex offender cases as the other three judges combined.

“Judge Ziegler has one of the strongest records in the state when it comes to handing out sentences to child sex offenders,” said District Attorney Todd Martens, who is one of the 43 district attorneys endorsing Judge Ziegler. “Sex offenders actually work hard to get out of her courtroom because they know what her real sentencing record.”

Judge Ziegler is the only judge and only prosecutor running for the Supreme Court. In addition to the bipartisan support of a majority of Wisconsin’s sheriffs and district attorneys, Judge Ziegler has been endorsed by every law enforcement organization that has endorsed in the race.

The Clifford campaign has made a big deal of Ziegler’s failure to recuse herself from several cases that involved West Bend Savings and Loan (where her husband sits on the Board of Directors).

But nobody has even claimed that anybody was treated unfairly in any of these cases, which were mostly so routine that they were handled by a clerk.

But what are we do think about the ethics of a candidate who intentionally tries to convince voters that a judge who is in fact tough on sex offenders is actually lenient?

Is there an ethical problem about that?