Walker should tread lightly on ethics

Is Scott Walker damning Mark Green with faint praise, or praising him with faint damning?

Whatever you call it, Walker's blog uses a radio commercial that I produced, raising questions about Green's blind spot on ethics violations, to take a slap at Green himself. Cute.

What Walker doesn't mention is that he also served in the Assembly Republican majority at the same time all of the illegal activities being discussed in Scott Jensen's trial were taking place.

And Walker, like Green, says he never had a clue that any staffers were doing anything wrong. (That's the two gov wannabes above, right, showing how they operated.)

And he neglected to mention this, from a Journal Sentinel story this week:

• Bruce Pfaff, on Jensen's staff during the 1998 elections and now Walker's campaign manager, was named on what Grant said was a work order for three campaign brochures.

On that work order were these notations: "Jensen wants to get these three (campaign) pieces out prior to our 9/28 poll" and "Bruce will pick up." Grant identified the "Bruce" as Pfaff.

Pfaff said Wednesday that he did not remember the incident, but that he did work on campaigns on weekends and evenings in 1998.

"Did I do things that somebody could construe as on-the-job campaigning? I don't know. Possibly," Pfaff said. "But I don't believe I did campaign work on state time."

Walker said he would review what was said in court.

Walker said that when he hired Pfaff as his campaign manager, he did not know that Pfaff had previously worked for Jensen. Walker and Jensen served in the Assembly together in the 1990s.

Really?

Walker's answer to the question of "What did he know and when did he know it" is "Nothing and never."

If I were Walker, I'd be careful about throwing stones at Green. There are two more weeks of the Jensen trial to come, too.