Posted on 11/05/2014 12:50:56 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Dear Dan: Go ahead, man. Lean over the toilet and let it out.
It must have been hard to include Wisconsin Reporter even backhanded among the winners in your post-election Winners and Losers column.
Dont fight it, Dan. Ill hold your hair.
In crediting Michael Grebe with Gov. Scott Walkers Election Day win over Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, you note that Grebe Walkers campaign chairman and head of (what you call) the conservative Bradley Foundation has poured money into online outlets that dig up dirt on Democrats and liberals. One of those groups, you say, is our own Wisconsin Reporter, the first, you note, to write up the allegations that Burke had been forced out as head of European operations at Trek Bicycle in 1993.
But heres where youve got it wrong PR-wise, I mean. Dont try to diminish the accomplishments of Wisconsin Reporter. Claim them as your own.
You, Daniel Bice, deserve some credit here. We got this idea from you.
Wisconsin Reporters Matt Kittle did indeed break the news that Burke was fired from the family-owned firm. She was fired by her brother and can we all just say, Yikes! because, you know, weve all kind of been there with family.
This contradicted Burkes campaign-trail assertions that she was a pyrotechnical success while overseeing Trek Bicycle Corporations European operations. And you, Dan Bice, were the first to see it.
Let me wipe your nose and explain how you ought to spin this.
On Sept. 8, Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel observed that Burkes résumé includes an odd and little-explained two-year gap between management positions at Trek, her family-owned business, in the mid-1990s. You noted there were differences in the explanation for what you said has been dubbed a snowboarding sabbatical.
I do want to fill in the blanks or resolve any inconsistencies, Burke reportedly told you. There are different things out there, and I want people to know the truth.
Did Daniel Bice let that go? He did not.
Feeling better? I thought so. Check this out.
In that same article, you observe that Burke said she left her familys company because she was tired. You give her the benefit of the doubt though it was clear to smart readers even then that you doubted. You report her assertions: Burke told you shed spent several years setting up five Trek offices in Europe and overseeing two others. She lived in Germany, Holland and Spain during this span. She has said Treks European sales jumped from $3 million a year to $50 million annually.
And heres the key, Dan. At that point in her narrative you tell readers those are sale numbers that have not been independently verified and you link readers to a story from January (January, Dan!) in which the Journal Sentinels own PolitiFact reported that Burke and Trek couldnt/wouldnt back up those numbers with documents. Writing on Jan. 8, your colleague Tom Kertscher reported that Burke and Trek a company founded by her father and run by her brother have repeatedly refused PolitiFact Wisconsins requests to document her claim.
You see where Im going with this. Drink this Sprite; its supposed to be good for the tummy.
You stopped because you couldnt find documents. But that didnt stop Mary Burke from making the claim.
So Matt Kittle tracked down executives who worked with her people willing to tell Wisconsinites what really happened to Mary Burke at Trek in 1993. With one exception, those people feared going public with their accounts feared that Trek or other Burke supporters would make their lives miserable.
Kittle got one person on the record along with four four! other Trek employees to speak anonymously about their direct knowledge of Burkes termination. And when that story appeared, it took you, Dan Bice, just a few hours and two colleagues to confirm it independently.
And then it got a little weird, didnt it, Dan?
Because it took one of your Wisconsin Journal Sentinel colleagues just a few more hours to dismiss Kittles findings (and, by extension, your findings, Dan) as 20-year-old twaddle. He called the revelations about Burke published now by Wisconsin Reporter and the Journal Sentinel! a classic political trick, an October surprise of innuendo and half-truths.
Im not sure which part of Burkes firing he regards as true, but I can tell you (offline) the whole truth about what Id say to one of my colleagues for knee-capping me like that in public.
All this internal sturm und drang a colleague writing in your papers Our View section to suggest that the appropriate thing to do with unpleasant news is to sit on it all of this, I say, may account for the fact that youre (whats the word?) vomiting a little maybe as you congratulate Grebe for his investment in Wisconsin Reporter.
But saying that, Dan saying that Wisconsin Reporters Mary Burke expose produced big returns for Wisconsin Republicans gives you too little credit.
The truth about Mary Burke isnt a Republican win. Its a big win for all of Wisconsin. And your telling of it so far gives you no credit for that big return.
Feeling better?
Background on the Mary Burke firing story.
I can hardly wait until they publish details of Dan Bice’s expose on Gov. Walker’s bald spot! sarc/off
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
Better put some ice on that, Dan. This letter’s gonna leave a mark for sure!
epic.
Bice is a typical lib journalist. When it’s bad news for a Pubbie, then they headline it. When it’s bad news for a Dem, they sit on it. Remember: It’s not the lies they tell, it’s the truth they hide.
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