From Madison to DC With Waxing America

• We agree with Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz "We need to find the right way to engage with the schools," he said. "Bill Clingan is part of the answer."  Clingan will make a great mayoral aide (not the job offered to him) and do a tremendous job for the city, but:
  • School liaison which is job one, should be headed by the mayor who has done a dismal job in working with the Madison Metropolitan School District. For the hundredth time, there is nothing the city does that impacts Madison's quality of life as much as do our schools.
  • Clingan should be in the mayor's office, and one of the mouthpieces who does not manage should be turned out to pasture.
  • None of this addresses the failure to appoint someone versed in economic development to the position.
    
  • None of this addresses the continued pattern of abusing the civil service system, which this mayor has done repeatedly.
  • The Clingan appointment will not improve the mayor's stock with the progressive left.
• Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) launched Mike Gableman as the right-wing candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Gableman made the following claims: he is a judge, not an ideologue and not a politician.
  • Then Gableman immediately pronounced, ""I am the only candidate in this race who has worked hard to hold criminals responsible and make them accountable for the consequences for their actions." So much for claims he is not an ideologue or a politician. It also raises healthy skepticism as to his qualifications as a judge.
• Waxing America is pleased to see that despite being thrown under the GOP bus, admitted bathroom abuser, Senator Larry Craig, (R-Idaho), has reneged on his promise to resign from the United States Senate. Now if he would only tell us what he really feels about his sexuality.
• Barack Obama's announcement that he he no longer wears an American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, scores well with us. As dear friend Sam Brown said, "Never offend with style when you can offend with substance."
• Sometime this week Waxing America counted its 300,000th page view.

Comments

[Moderate Lee Concerned]

From the Clingan school article: "Cieslewicz said he does not understand the level of emotionalism in the business community's response to his selection of Clingan for the job. He said he understood, though, that the business community expected that someone pro-business would be hired for the position. "I knew the kind of person they were looking for and I knew Bill Clingan wasn't it." But, Cieslewicz said, "In my view,no promise made."

The interesting thing is that the catalyst for this position even being created was the Mayor asking the EDC to find out why Madison is perceived as being bad for business and asking for suggestions on how to change that perception. Creating an Economic Development office was one of the suggestions in the subsequent report in December 2004. Perhaps a promise was not made, but it seems like a slap in the face to ask the business community (via the EDC) to spend months working on a report only to respond with, Thanks for letting me know what might help change the bad-for-business perception. Am I going to do it? Yeah, not so much. Shoulda asked for something in writing suckers.

He could have just said up front that his idea of economic development was more social services, and traditional business can stick it. Or as one staff member put it in a meeting "Verona is that-a-way."