We've all read a lot of disingenuous op-eds in our time, but I doubt we'll ever read one more cynically mendacious than Scott Walker's in USA Today. It finishes:
There has been much discussion about a media double standard where Republicans are covered differently than Democrats, asked to weigh in on issues the Democrats don't face. As a result, when we refuse to take the media's bait, we suffer.
I felt it this week when I was asked to weigh in on what other people said and did and what others' beliefs are. If you are looking for answers to those questions, ask those people.
I will always choose to focus on what matters to the American people, not what matters to the media.
What Walker presents here is the classic Sarah Palin gambit: While exploiting the media, he portrays himself as a victim of it. Has Walker risen in the polls because he has "focus[ed] on what matters to the American people"? Or has his rightist popularity soared precisely because he has said nothing of any value to anyone?
It's Walker's suggestion. We could ask Ms. Palin how that gambit worked out for her. We wouldn't get a straight answer, of course, and therein lies the even more salient reason why Palin is now a complete nobody in politics. Even blinkered right wingers figured out she has nothing to say.
In dodging what were never sensitive questions, Walker has tailored himself a haunting straitjacket. He thought it cute and politically expedient to deny knowledge of Obama's religion or love of country, and indeed it was expedient. The cheaper the politics, the more the GOP base eats it up. Yet presidential campaigns are long, grueling, and as much about questioning others' ideas as avowing one's own principles. And here, Walker cuts himself out of the game. You wish to know what he thinks of "others' beliefs"? Walker puts it in writing: You'll have to ask them.
If the political press does its job — granted, that's a big if — this is a shortsighted blunder that will stalk him throughout the primaries.
One other thing. I can assure the governor that those political others won't be shy about questioning Walker's beliefs, as well as his past activities. And once their assorted opposition-research teams begin spewing their mountains of dirt and skulduggery, the questions will abound. What will Walker's answer then be? That he doesn't talk about himself, either?
This clown is amateur hour personified.