Doubling Down

So we got Democratic senators hiding out somewhere in northern Illinois. Meanwhile, back at the Capitol… well, I’ll let the Madison altweekly scribe pick up the story, seeing as he wrote the damn thing:

If anyone thought Gov. Scott Walker — in his frantic push to extract unilateral concessions from state employees and break the back of public employee unions throughout the state — could not possibly be more arrogant, they were wrong. Walker took this aspect of his character to a whole new level late this afternoon, in a press conference in his office.

…

In what he obviously thought was an effort to be diplomatic, Walker said the teeming masses of protesters, who, even as he spoke, packed the Capitol inside and out, had “a right to be heard.” But, he added, they don’t have the right to “drown out” the millions of state residents he claims support his moves. Walker called on the Democratic members of the state Senate to return to work to do the job “they were elected to do.” Again, he insisted this is what the state’s residents want, overlooking that the Democrats’ decision to not show up for work today was drawing audible cheers from many thousands of people.

…

I asked if he thought his proposal — which called on the Legislature to act six days after it was introduced — did not amount to ramming things through. He denied it absolutely, and chided me for editorializing. Walker reiterated that it should have been obvious to everyone what he had in mind before he announced it, saying, “If anyone doesn’t know what’s coming, they’ve been asleep for the last two years.”

It certainly appears, if the activists don’t suddenly get bored with it all, that we could all be on this story for a while.

chicago bureau
8:59 pm • Thursday • February 17, 2011
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Doubling Down

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