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I seem to remember an old saying that goes something like:
“If you’re going to lose your job, you might as well make a complete ass of yourself in the process.”
Maybe I’m mistaken — maybe that’s not an old saying. Regardless, it seems to be the philosophy of Democratic Party spokesperson Graeme Zielinski.
Last Friday, Milwaukee County officials closed a John Doe investigation of Gov. Scott Walker’s Milwaukee County executive office. While the investigators sifted through countless emails, raided the homes of the governor’s aides and arrested a number of his associates, they never brought criminal charges against Walker.
Shortly after the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office announced the end of the John Doe, Zielinski began posting tweets in which he insisted regardless of the findings of the investigation, Walker was still a criminal — but he didn’t stop there. Zielinski went on to compare Walker to the serial killer Jeffery Dahmer. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he wrote, “@GovWalker had better lawyers than Jeffrey Dahmer in beating the rap. Clear that he committed crimes,” and, “@GovWalker spent more than Jeffrey Dahmer to beat criminal charges.”
There are certain things you’re not allowed to do as the spokesperson for a political party — one of them is compare the governor to a serial killer. But that’s exactly what Zielinski did. Later, he made a sheepish public apology and deleted his Twitter posts.
In response to Zielinski’s remarks, Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate wrote in an email to the Journal Sentinel, “He and I regret his comment.”
This might be loosely translated as, “Yeah, he’ll be losing his job in the near future.” Indeed, last week the Democratic Party dropped Zielinski as a spokesperson and docked him a week’s pay. It can safely be said nobody was the least bit surprised. It’d be unthinkable for the Democrats to keep him around, after a public image disaster like that.
Charles Godfrey ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in physics and math.
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