Agreed: An apology is in order

Boy, there's a storm in the RWB (Right Wing Blogosphere) over my post about the free, corporate-produced and paid commercial running on WTMJ-AM radio. Charlie Sykes calls it a blogswarm. Jessica McBride alone did her own blogswarm, being inspired to write 1,500 words.

The right-wingers are all over it and me, using terms like "free speech" and "fair comment" to defend what clearly is neither. They don't seem to be able to distinguish between this post on a WisOpinion blog, a newspaper editorial, and a commercial, which fits all of the definitions of issue advocacy, airing over and over on the state's largest radio station.

Worse yet, James Widgerson suggests I owe Sykes an apology.

Au contraire.

If there is any apology due anyone, it is an apology from Sykes to Jim Doyle, for equating him with two racist governors who tried to keep black students out of public schools.

Doyle has offered a reasonable compromise on this issue. The Republicans insist on an all-or-nothing approach.

It is the Republicans and their allies who are blocking the doorway and creating a crisis that does not have to exist.

It's not about the kids. It's about scoring cheap political points at any price, at the expense of Jim Doyle,who has been committed his entire life to the fight for racial equality. It's not lip service with Doyle; it's the way he's lived his life. As most people learned for the first time in the last governor's race, the Doyles have two African-American sons.

I guess that's probably one of the things that set me off when I heard what Sykes calls his "spot." Jim Doyle is the antithesis of a racist. But he is being portrayed as one, and it's not very subtle.

Hell, yes, there should be an apology. Sykes should apologize on the air to Jim Doyle.

While he's at it, maybe he should apologize to principled school choice supporters, like Howard Fuller, who really do care about the kids, and who would I am certain would never stoop to tactics like this. Fuller and others know Doyle is a decent man who happens to disagree with them on this issue, not a racist who's trying to hurt black children.

Sykes knows that, too, of course. But he doesn't care.

UPDATE: Sykes plays the race card.