Doyle's continental divide

A day after the indictment that shook the state of Wisconsin and permanently tainted any laughable trace of a legacy Jim Doyle may have hoped to leave behind, the fallout continues. From the Middle East, the governor issued a deeply disturbing statement that shows, in nothing else, that the continental divide has left Mr. Doyle woefully out of touch with the complete collapse of his administration's integrity over the past 24 hours:

I'm a former prosecutor, and I have a lot of respect for prosecutors and the job they do. We take this very seriously. But we also have to be very careful that election year politics and partisanship don't take the place of fairness - and that a longtime civil servant isn't used as a political football.

Election year politics? Jenna, over at Right Off the Shore, posted on the indictment yesterday and “RealDebate” left a piece of feedback joking:

I'm dying to see Xoff blame this on Walker somehow.

Jessica McBride posted a response less than two hours later noting that Bill Christofferson (aka Xoff) had done just that. And now, it would appear, what started as a rather cute sarcastic remark on Jenna's blog has turned into the actual posture of the governor, who is blaming his own administration's gross corruption on “election year politics.”

Then again, Mr. Doyle is not entirely wrong. We do need to “be very careful that election year politics ... don't take the place of fairness.” And that is precisely why awarding a travel contract to a generous campaign donor who is otherwise undeserving of the state funds cannot be tolerated. The governor is crying about “fairness” from abroad and yet he seems to be in a rather thick degree of denial about just how black the pot back home has become in his absence.

I know Mr. Doyle is traveling as a guest of the Department of Defense and, for once, actually doing good work while abroad in the Middle East. But, if possible, it really is time for the governor to return home. His constituency has some very pressing questions. And, frankly, we deserve answers that don't carry a dateline.