Ratfker James O'Keefe Has Claimed a Republican Scalp

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

13 April 14

ell, spavined ratfker James O'Keefe has claimed a Republican scalp this time. Hoorah! Bipartisanship! O'Keefe even bragged about this very thing on Twitter the other day when a bunch of us pointed around that he'd been kicked in the jewels by a court in the liberal enclave of San Antonio. See, went the spiel, I got me a Republican, too.

No, wait...

Ellis is a Republican, but not the right kind of Republican.

He leaves undone by the very qualities that helped him endure: his willingness to jostle his own party, brag and spout bull as he aired private views that were not always in line with his public stances. Following the release of the recording, Ellis found himself forced to tell a skeptical public that he didn't understand the limits of campaign laws that he had long championed...A former math teacher, Ellis defined himself over the years as a budget hawk who often schooled lawmakers and reporters on state finances using blackboards he had mounted in a Capitol conference room. He frustrated many of his fellow Republicans over his fight last year to curtail Gov. Scott Walker's plans to expand voucher schools statewide, a battle that resulted in a watered-down version of Walker's plan getting signed into law.

And not only that, but...

On Thursday, the second video was released. It was culled from the same recordings as the first one but focused more on Ellis' comments critical of his fellow Republicans. At one point, the person recording the conversation said Walker was focusing on a potential presidential run in 2016. "Amen," Ellis responded. Later, he said, "I think Walker's working for Walker."

Dawn breaks over Marblehead.

I could be connecting the wrong dots at the end of a long week, but this looks very much like a hit put out on Ellis by the friends of Scott Walker's chronically unethical political operation, so that the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin would be rid of a considerable pain in his ass. This becomes even more suspicious when you realize that the very thing that hung Ellis -- his desire, expressed in the surreptitious video and audio recordings made by O'Keefe's band of ratfkers, to coordinate his campaign with a SuperPac in violation of Wisconsin law -- is exactly the same thing that is part of the bill of particulars against Walker himself. Thus is some "everybody does it" dust thrown in the eyes of people looking sideways at the fact that Walker never has run a campaign in his life -- including for student government at Marquette -- that wasn't shady is some significant way. Unless, of course, you believe that James O'Keefe ever has only the interest of good government at heart. This, however, requires you to ignore one of the fundamental rules of modern politics -- the one thing you can count on about ratfkers is that they will fk rats.