On Curt Schilling’s personal blog, he has written a post where he discusses his impending free agency. In it, he expresses a desire to go to a team that has “a legitimate shot at being in the post season and/or World Series.” The Brewers are on that list.

It’s true, Schilling is getting old – but he proved in the playoffs that he can shut other good teams down. Who knows if he can do it for a full season. He has said he’s looking for something in the one-year, $13 million range.

This begs a larger discussion of what the Brewers plan on doing in the offseason. They have a little money to spend – dumping Geoff Jenkins nets them $9 million. Kevin Mench being gone saves $3 million. Getting rid of Corey Koskie saves them $2 million – his salary was over $5 million, but the Blue Jays were still picking up the majority of that.

Since the end of last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about what Torii Hunter would look like in a Brewer uniform. It seems like money-wise, they could make that happen. Hart in right, Hunter in Center, and some kind of platoon of Gross, Nix, and Hall in left would be ideal. And I still like Gwynn.

Although if some team goes crazy over Hunter and outbids the Brewers, I can see Schilling as a decent option. He may be able to prevent the team from completely collapsing when Ben Sheets’ arm inevitably falls off in August.

Either way, it’s nice to see Milwaukee get the love it deserves from the game’s stars.

With the state budget having worked its way through the legislative process like a rat working its way through a snake, things are much quieter on the media front.  Over the summer and into the fall, the rhetoric was flying about who was to blame for the late budget.  Now that the process is done and we’ve gotten a glimpse of what really happened, it’s instructive to exhume that issue and provide an autopsy of how it was covered at the time.

As everyone can recall, the Republican Assembly was pitted against the Democratic Senate and governor in negotiating a final budget.  The budget as passed by the Senate was chock full of new taxes on hospitals, oil companies, and cigarettes, just to name a few.  The Assembly sought to remove those tax increases, arguing that natural growth in state revenues were enough to cover the state’s spending obligations.  Negotiations were at an impasse for some time, with both sides holding firm.

And how was this impasse portrayed to the state’s public?  Naturally, it was just taken for granted that it was the fault of Assembly Republicans.  In fact, some media outlets came out and said it directly.  Take this editorial from Tom Giffey of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, entitled “Assembly Main Culprit in Budget Impasse.”

While the latter two parties still aren’t blameless, it has become clear the Assembly is the major roadblock to the budget’s completion. Last Monday, on a 44-53 vote, they rejected the latest version of the budget, which had been presented to the Legislature by a frustrated Doyle, who called a special session to spur lawmakers to finish their job.

[...]

And what about other taxpayers? Because of the budget delay, school districts will get nearly $80 million less in state aid than they expected, forcing them to make deep cuts or raise taxes; thousands of university students are without financial aid grants for the fall semester; and all university students face the prospect of a tuition surcharge in the spring.

None of which, incidentally, happened.

Readers of the Wisconsin State Journal were treated to this article on Sunday, October 7th:

Gop Accused Of Blocking Budget: Doyle’s Spokesman Says Republicans And Their Supporters Are Working Together To Delay Passage.

Republicans and their supporters are working together to delay passage of a new state budget, Gov. Jim Doyle’s spokesman said Friday.

“You have what appears to be a coordinated strategy to delay this budget,” said Matt Canter, spokesman for the Democratic governor.

The blame went on and on, with few articles recognizing that budget negotiations are accomplished by two parties.  Not surprisingly, now that the budget is complete, we’re getting an entirely different story.

In a press conference following passage of the budget, Doyle actually credited Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch with continuing to negotiate all along:

Doyle also tipped his hat to Huebsch, R-West Salem, for not letting budget negotiations wither.

“When the public rhetoric was flying around and everybody was calling everybody names, he was quietly and patiently continuing to talk,” Doyle said.

Incidentally, much of that “public rhetoric” and “name calling” was done by Doyle himself (see above).  But Doyle knew full well media outlets would buy his version of events, which we now know to be untrue.

Shortly after passage of the budget, Senate Democrats removed their leader, Senator Judy Robson.  New Majority Leader Russ Decker said his coup was due in large part by Robson’s refusal to hold out longer:

Decker also said that he would “hopefully” have gotten a better deal for Democrats had he been leader, as well, adding he would have held out longer for the hospital assessment, oil assessment and combined reporting.

In a blistering television interview given after her removal, Robson confirms that Decker was urging negotiations to drag on, in hopes of forcing a government shut down.  Clearly, Decker knew that the longer the budget dragged on, the worse it looked for Republicans – in large part, because of the media rush to blame the GOP for the lack of movement.  Decker knew that Democrats would never be on the hook for a late budget, and that any perceived damage to the state would be pinned on Republicans.  Clearly, he was right.

In sum:  Huebsch kept negotiating (see Doyle quote), Decker was elected because he wanted to hold out longer (see Decker quote), and the media targeted conservatives (Rep. Steve Nass, etc.) as the bad guys, despite the strident right making themselves completely irrelevant to the budget process before the budget even began.  Republicans were consistently being portrayed as being pulled by the “extreme” wing of the party; yet, by signing a “no tax increase” pledge, those conservatives essentially excused themselves from budget participation before the process even started.  But it’s a lot simpler and easier to villify the GOP as caving in to their extremists.

Yet nobody in the state would get that this is what was going on, as few questioned the template: Republicans are refusing to negotiate because they want to cut programs and force a government shutdown.  Of course, the fact that Senate Democrats included an unprecedented $15.2 billion universal health care plan in their budget with one day’s notice couldn’t possibly have held up negotiations, since it doesn’t fit the pre-existing blueprint for how budget negotiations are covered.  

Fortunately, now that the budget’s done, everyone can sit back and have a good laugh about how inaccurately the process was covered.  As long as it makes the right side look bad, who cares, right?