April
2007
McGee will be emboldened by beating back his recall
We didn’t support Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee Jr’s recall for multiple reasons but we predicted his win way before anyone else did.
Now that we’ve been proven right, what will be the effect of McGee’s win? The answer is simple — he will be emboldened to continue his poor behavior which is unbefitting of a public official.
To understand why the black community said no, you have to understand the racial politics in Milwaukee. It is very difficult for a white person to win in a majority black district and even though McGee’s opponents were people of color, there was no secret about who was pushing the recall — white suburban republicans.
Ignorance and fear fueled the successful GOP inspired 2002 recalls in white suburbia in Milwaukee County. Attempts to bring the poison to the central city failed and now that the recalls have been proven to have been under false pretenses (even Milwaukee’s GOP County Executive, Scott Walker, indicated in his state of the county address this year that the county board had been lied to), people of color aren’t in any mood to embrace the knee jerk activism from pro-recall GOP activists like Orville Seymour or Chris Kliesmet.
To add fuel to suspicion, Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) held a pro-recall rally at the same south side establishment (Serb Hall) that they launched the other pro-GOP recalls. GOP talk radio show host Charlie Sykes used his show to lambaste McGee. Since Sykes often uses his show to take dishonest and unfair cheap shots at high profile people of color on his high wattage station, it was clear to McGee’s constituents that Sykes was once again not representing their interests. Add to the fact that Sykes wrongly and immorally lied about McGee and got caught doing it, accusing the Alderman of making anti-semitic comments when he made no such statements, fueled suspicion.
Take a look though at McGee’s record and you’ll find that he’s had a horrible record which defies responsibility. Should McGee have been recalled? No. Normal election times are the best time to replace irresponsible public officials. Should he be removed next April? Absolutely. His actions have been an embarrassment for his constituents.
Jim McGuigan
The “forces of darkness” McGee was talking about are the elections commission, the mayor and DCD, especially after Una Van Duvall jumped into the race and got the Journal Sentinel endorsement, another “force of darkness.”
Vianna Jordan pushed this recall. She was sabatoged by Joan Hollingsworth and McGee - the talk in the black community was that the signature gathering process was a sham. The CRG just came in to help raise money for Jordan’s legal bills. Nobody in the 6th District gave them a second thought, or Sykes.
Nobody campaigned hard to get out a vote anyway, with the exception of McGee.
Since when did Sykes “lie” about McGee’s comment? Sykes made a mistake. When I heard the clip, I thought McGee said “Jew”, as well. Would it have surprised you if he did say “Jew”, given his history?
If you check the post Jim wrote about it - here ’tis http://watchdogmilwaukee.com/blog/jim/2007/charlie-sykes-liar/ - you’ll see we don’t think it was an honest mistake. Sykes likely knew what he was doing and figured saying “Jew cop” was more fun than talking about the mauling of Frank Jude, Jr.
Jim comparing it to Rosann Rosann O’Danna is on the mark. This is what we resort to these days in the media - take a remark out of context and play it over and over again until it takes on a life of its own and becomes part of the public language. It doesn’t matter in media if you apologize the next day, the damage is done for at least a little while until other events or remarks move the initial remark to the back burner.
This is what happened with the Dean scream; it’s what happens all the time. It happens in print, in televesion, but even more so in talk radio infotainment and in the blogosphere.
Funny, the other day I posted 10 links in a “Sunday notes” post and the one that generated the most response from readers and interest was our spin on what Sykes said about McGee. Not Airtran and Midwest, not Georgia Thompson, not the grim realities of the 6th Aldermanic District, which McGee is learning how to make sense of, we hope. (No wonder he acts crazy - maybe you would too if you lived in Milwaukee’s 6th.)
No, none of that. What concerns us is what TMJ’s talk show host said about Michael McGee, Jr. I’d be less concerned about Sykes or McGee Jr. and more concerned about what it says about us.