Media feeding frenzy over Scott Walker goes too far

While Scott Walker — suddenly the Republican
presidential frontrunner by a wide margin in some polls — seems to be the
flavor of the month, the feeding frenzy in the media has created an
outsized appetite regarding the Wisconsin governor.

While recent Walker revelations and eyebrow-raising
statements could be enough to eventually knock him down a peg or two, The Daily
Beast and the New York Times admittedly hammered him a little too hard.

The Daily Beast retracted its report  (not before it was widely reprinted by numerous publications) that the governor removed from the state budget a provision requiring
reporting of on-campus rapes. According to Politico, The Daily Beast admitted the other day that the full
story was this: the budget item was axed at the request of education officials
because it was a repetition of a separate rule requiring the reporting of
campus sexual assaults to the feds.

The false report was written by a college columnist and
was first published by another site, Jezebel. The writer, Natasha Vargas-Cooper,
foolishly defended her substandard reporting. She went on Twitter to hit back
at Walker’s defenders: “I’m not gonna apologize for reporting what was in the budget.
Because that was in the budget. Ask your gov. to apologize for bad optix.” She
later did apologize.

Conservative news sites had a field day with
the error, for which the Times printed a correction. Collins had written that that Walker’s recent speech in Iowa, in
which he criticized the seniority-based layoff process for teachers, was all
about “waging war on public employee unions, particularly the ones for
teachers.”

Fellow conservative Republicans shouldn’t feel too bad for Walker.
As the liberal Daily Kos has noted, Walker uses the example of Wisconsin teacher
Claudia Felske when criticizing union practices. But he botches and spins the Felske
story beyond all recognition.