Rough waters, bad beef

STEVENS POINT, Wis. - As the old saying goes, it's not impropriety so much as the appearance of impropriety. And while Governor Doyle may or may not be actually guilty of any criminal or unethical behavior, he sure has become good at acting like a guilty man.

Just a week after “Adelman Travel” became a household name in Wisconsin, Mr. Doyle is doing his best to distance himself from another peculiar circumstance. The Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter notes:

MANITOWOC - Gov. Jim Doyle has returned $10,000 in campaign donations from Burger Boat owners David Ross and Jim Ruffolo, according to a campaign finance document filed Tuesday.

Two days after each man made a $5,000 donation, a Department of Transportation advisory committee accepted the company's $1.1 million grant proposal for a boat ramp.

Quid pro quo? You decide.

But if this was an ethical deal, one sure does have to wonder just why Mr. Doyle is giving the campaign cash back. Then again, is he? The same article has a peculiar notation buried in the boilerplate:

Doyle's campaign will not return $5,000 donations that Ross and Ruffolo made in 2003, spokeswoman Melanie Fonder said.

Those donations came six months after Burger Boat won $2.1 million in state grants and loans for a company expansion and two months before Doyle appeared at the company's groundbreaking on the project.

Payola in the Capitol? With Mr. Doyle in office, it is like watching a looped rerun of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but with an alternate ending seemingly out of “The Manchurian Candidate.”