Scott Walker on CNN—"I’m willing to take on anyone"

Scott Walker is one tough guy.

Facing a campaign meltdown, Walker appears to be trying to become the character, Alex 'Tig' Trager, in Sons of Anarchy (TM and ©2015 FX Networks, LLC) riding a Harley around and killing people who give SAMCRO a bad time.

That was a fun show, but you know, it was television.

Check out Raw Story's report of Walker's interview today on CNN in which Walker says, "I’m willing to take on anyone," after refusing to answer the question stating the Koch brothers are a "special interest."

Note to Scott Walker, you're going have to grow up, man. Below, Scott Walker's new face in the mirror this week:

Scott Walker—"I’m the one they fear most"

Scott Walker - They fear me
most. And I want more
military spending because
I'm strong, bold, and brave!

"I’m the one they [non-GOP general election voters] fear most." (Hahn, Des Moines Register)

Thus spake Scott Walker in Tipton, Iowa this weekend.

Scott, don't you know that in the field of whacks, most of America would love for the Republican Party to offer you up as the nominee?

Don't you know that?

By now you have been advised of many political writers questioning your viability as a candidate for the presidency, saying you lack the intelligence and the policy knowledge.

A bold proposal

How about you come to Madison, Wisconsin and hold your first unscripted, town-hall-style meeting with no screenings of questions or people?

A Wisconsin resident comes up to the mic and asks you a question, and leaves (within the realm of reason) when she or he is satisfied you actually answered the question. Follow-up questions are encouraged.

And the press is invited afterwards to ask you about your performance. How about it, Scott? Be bold.

Scott Walker Tumbles to Three Percent in Iowa in Latest Poll

First to 10th in Less Than Two Months of the Official 'Scott Walker for America' Launch

John McCormick reports on Scott Walker's free fall to the bottom in Iowa today.

McCormick writes:

Scott Walker, the one-time Republican front-runner in Iowa, has taken a precipitous fall in a new poll of those likely to vote in the first presidential nomination contest on Feb. 1.

The Wisconsin governor, who is set to campaign in Iowa this weekend, was backed by just 3 percent of likely Iowa caucus participants in the latest Quinnipiac University poll. (Bloomberg Politics)

Maybe the good GOP-voting folks in Iowa didn't notice the narrow-shouldered governor riding through New Hampshire on a Harley Davidson earlier this week.

Walker's tough, unintimidated and never backs down—just like the character, Alex 'Tig' Trager, in Sons of Anarchy (TM & ©2015 FX Networks, LLC). Maybe that's who Walker wants to be when he grows up.

Hillary Clinton ridiculed the plummeting Walker in Milwaukee yesterday: "It seems to me, just observing him, that Governor Walker thinks because he busts unions, starves universities, guts public education, demeans women, scapegoats teachers, nurses and firefighters, he's some kind of tough guy on his motorcycle." (CBS News)

Hillary has Walker down, though she did omit the fact Walker is a lightweight, pathological liar and coward.

"[T]hroughout his career, Walker didn’t have to deal with a [national] media that never hesitated to declare him dumb, dull, or dead at the first whiff of a gaffe," notes Jack Craver in The Atlantic.

Scott Walker is Wisconsin's problem again. The nation took a whiff and is leaving Walker for the crows.

Scott Walker Lacks the Intelligence to Serve as President

Scott Walker stumped again as he does nothing to dispel
doubts about his intelligence while campaigning
in New Hampshire. From the Chris Hayes Show

Scott Walker: "There is no such thing as a hypothetical."
-
I thought there were hypotheticals—instructive to understanding what would/should occur in future circumstances.

Typically, when Scott Walker serves up a non-sequitur and incoherent response to the rare question to which he replies in public, a spokesperson and Milwaukee's talk radio step up to clarify what Walker meant to say.

But c'mon Wisconsin Republicans, admit it: Walker lacks the intellect to be president.

Walker—facing plummeting poll numbers and feeling the heat "he has raised questions about if he is actually smart enough to run for president," in the words of a New Hampshire Republican, (Glueck, The Politico)—humiliated himself again trying to respond to an ABC News reporter during a press gaggle Monday in Rochester.

Campaigning in New Hampshire on Labor Day, Scott Walker offered a ridiculous and contradictory response when pressed about what he would do to handle the Syrian Migrant-Refugee crisis. [Segment - All In with Chris Hayes 9/8/15 - 2016 candidates skip specifics on refugee crisis]

In a video (below) of a 2:54-minute segment, Walker became testy with an ABC News reporter and veered once again into incoherence asserting, "There is no such thing as a hypothetical," before offering his opinion of what "people need to do" when he assumed the office of the presidency in January 2017.

Walker should perhaps learn what conditional questions, subjunctive moods and hypotheticals really are.

If a candidate for public office takes the position that no hypothetical questions may be responded to because she or he has not assumed office, what is to become of the campaign pledge, promise and assurance? What about public policy? It can't be discussed because it has not been enacted yet?

Jordyn Phelps of ABC News offers:

As Europe grapples with the mass migration of more than 300,000 refugees fleeing war in Syria, Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker won’t say whether the United States should open its doors to absorb more of the migrants.

Walker’s reason for not taking a stand is that he says it would be hypothetical for him to do so since he is not currently the president. 

A transcript of the exchange is below:

ABC News Reporter: What would you do to address the migrants who are currently fleeing into Europe? Does (sic), should the U.S. accept some of those migrants into the country?

Scott Walker: "Well, again the problem is we're ignoring the basis of the core of the problem. The problem is this president has had a weak stance in terms of taking on ISIS."

ABC News Reporter: But to follow up, if you were president today, what would you do?

Scott Walker: "I'm not president today, and I can't be president today. I'm going to be president in January of 2017 and I'm telling you what people need to do. Everybody wants to talk about hypotheticals. There is no such thing as a hypothetical."

[Notes Jaime Fuller in New York Magazine: "(This is) a sentence that probably would have moved Socrates to set Walker's pants on fire himself." Note to Mr Fuller: See Walker's May 2015 "That's a hypothetical question in the past. We're going to talk about the future," before Walker rushed away from a group of reporters in Michigan. (Mal Contends and Bloomberg Politics News, Scott Walker Tiptoes Past Michigan Reporters' Most Common Question). Hypothetically, I think Socrates would have poisoned Scott Walker out of exasperation.]

ABC News Reporter: Governor, the fact that these refugees need a place to go is not a hypothetical, and Pope Francis has even come in and said that countries need to help them. I mean, should the U.S. play an active role?

Scott Walker:  "Again. I'm taking about what I'll do as president ... that will be a year and half from now."
---
In terms of being president were such a phenomenon to take place, Scott Walker does not, like, know what he should do because of his new epistemological rule: "There is no such thing as a hypothetical." Or is this a new new metaphysics discovered on the presidential campaign trail, 2015? The Bradley Center is calling you, Scott Walker.

Scott Walker Fading

'Scott Walker's foreign policy experience is limited to breakfast at the old International House of Pancakes, as he threatens to start at least two wars upon taking office'

Of increasing concern to Scott Walker is what the Washington Post calls persistent "questions about his readiness to handle the problems and unexpected challenges that confront every president" (Dan Balz and Jenna Johnson, Post).

Yeah?

The intrepid Scott Walker's reboot has begun: Let's build a wall between the United States and Canada, said Walker this weekend.

That's big and bold; thanks Scott for keeping us safe.

Of course, those big bodies of water to Wisconsin's north and east—the Great Lakes that glaciers (I mean god) bestowed—they should be quarantined by the U.S. Navy and not because of invasive species and Canadians (they're okay).

Muslim terrorists could board a ship—disguised with 1,550-horsepower Mercury Marine engines (those Muslims are clever heathens)—begin at Thunder Bay, Ontario and leisurely boat across Lake Superior, suddenly storm the Apostle Islands way up north off the Bayfield Peninsula, disembark at Red Cliff and then drive in waiting Ford trucks due south to our doom in Richland and Dane County.

Then, we'll all pay and wish we had listened to Mr. Churchill, or whoever Walker sees in the mirror this week.
---

Balz and Johnson's prose in the Post is Washington-polite talk for Scott Walker doesn't know anything no matter how much money and propaganda Walker gets from ALEC, the Koch Brothers, the Bradley Foundation, the MacIver Institute, the Wisconsin Reporter, Media Trackers, and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, and other Republican Party-front groups.

Paul Fanlund of the Capital Times offers up a must-read narrative this morning.

Here's an excerpt:

Writes Fanlund:

Day after day, our Republican governor comes off as increasingly cartoonish in the national media, a small figure waving his arms behind Trump, seeming to shout 'Me too! Me too!'

Walker, you see, has apparently convinced himself he represents a one-man profile in courage for eviscerating union rights in Wisconsin, even though he was carried by millionaire and billionaire donors and strategists, a Republican-controlled Legislature, a compliant and politicized state Supreme Court and an off-balance and underperforming state Democratic Party.

This self-aggrandizement showed itself in his autobiography, 'Unintimidated,' in which he described his lifelong admiration of Reagan and famously asserted that the president’s decision to fire striking air traffic controllers somehow intimidated the Soviet Union and hastened its demise.

That sort of preposterous claim foreshadowed other bizarre assertions by Walker, such as that facing down angry schoolteachers somehow equips him to defeat Islamic State terrorists. (That nugget was so daffy that it keeps getting recycled, cut-and-paste style, whenever national reporters summarize Walker’s many odd worldviews.)

His recent pattern is to take an outlandishly extreme position—for example, denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants—only to qualify that position, and, on this topic, qualify it again. Read a headline in New York Magazine: 'Scott Walker clarifies his third position on birthright citizenship.'

Timothy Egan of the New York Times nicely summed up Walker’s would-be machismo: 'Scott Walker, the governor whose foreign policy experience is limited to breakfast at the old International House of Pancakes, threatens to start at least two wars upon taking office. He promises to use military action if necessary to coax Iran into doing what he wants it to do. He also wants to pick a fight with Russia, sending weapons to Ukraine and erecting a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.' 

Bear in mind, like Scott says, this a marathon, not a sprint.

Scott Walker Can't Answer Basic Questions about Pakistan

Scott Walker cannot field the most basic questions on foreign policy, specifically Pakistan.

Cognitive Dissidence has the story.

Scott Walker Says Wisconsin People "Tested" Him to Fight ISIS, "Lead" World

Scott Walker

Voters requiring evidence Scott Walker is a lightweight not fit for office at any level in our constitutional republic ought to consider Walker's foreign policy address at the Citadel military college in South Carolina. (Opoien, Capital Times) (New York Times)

Walker again makes the absurd assertion his secretly crafting legislation in 2010-11 on which he had refused to campaign—dropping a "bomb" on Wisconsin public employees to use Walker's phrase—makes Walker imbued with knowledge of battling ISIS, a force created after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.

"America will not be intimidated. And neither will I. America must be, not only the land of the free, but the home of the brave. An America that is unintimidated. ... Clearly, clearly, we can no longer afford to be passive spectators while the world descends into chaos. With all the challenges we face around the globe today, now is not the time for untested leadership. I have been tested like no other candidate in this race," said Walker.

The Capital Times' Opoien notes: "This wasn't the first time Walker invoked his union battle as a sign of his preparedness to tackle international conflicts. In February, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference, Walker famously declared, 'If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.'" [YouTube]

Nor is this the first time Walker has asserted a strange and vague notion that America must reassert military strength some where at some time to "lead" again, a reckless notion that drew wide derision after the first Republican debate.

Taking Walker's words at face value what manner does Walker view the American people when he conceives them as a force to be conquered (to use Walker's description again)? Or as analogous in any way to ISIS/ISIL?

Walker's wide-ranging, hawkish foreign policy pronouncements have been panned by foreign policy experts for months. (US News)

Notes Juan Cole on Scott Walker's response to a question about foreign policy in early August:

MEGYN KELLY: Governor Walker, in February you said that we needed to gain partners in the Arab world. Which Arab country not already in the U.S. led coalition has potential to be our greatest partner?

SCOTT WALKER: What about then (ph) [an unintelligible phonetic sound], we need to focus on the ones we have. You look at Egypt, probably the best relationship we’ve had in Israel, at least in my lifetime, incredibly important.

You look at the Saudis — in fact, earlier this year, I met with Saudi leaders, and leaders from the United Arab Emirates, and I asked them what’s the greatest challenge in the world today? Set aside the Iran deal. They said it’s the disengagement of America. We are leading from behind under the Obama-Clinton doctrine — America’s a great country. We need to stand up and start leading again, and we need to have allies, not just in Israel, but throughout the Persian Gulf.”

Writes Cole:

I mean, could the man even find these places on the map? First of all, what in the world does that mean, 'You look at Egypt, probably the best relationship we’ve had in Israel, at least in my lifetime.' Does he think Egypt is in Israel? That 'Israel' means something like 'the Middle East'? If so, no wonder Congress is willing to do whatever Tel Aviv asks. I mean, how can you decline, when the Middle East calls?

As for having allies 'throughout the Persian Gulf,' the US already does. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman are all US allies. Bahrain hosts the HQ of the Fifth Fleet. We have several thousand troops based in Kuwait. Qatar leases us the al-Udaid Air Force Base. Etc., etc. I’m not sure what the Gulf Cooperation Council states in the Gulf want the US to lead them toward, but their current campaign is in Yemen, which, although I am very critical of the Houthi rebels, I don’t think is a good idea. No doubt they would have wanted us to take the lead there. But, do we need another quagmire? But Walker seems weak-minded enough so maybe all sorts of foreign countries can bamboozle him into doing their adventurism for them.

Concludes Cole: "After W., I have a rule that if you flounder around speaking some odd Klingon form of English and don’t seem actually to, like, know anything, you can’t be president."

Or any office as the rural areas of Wisconsin are finding out, now.

Scott Walker's 'Boots on the Ground, War Everywhere' Comments Show Defects

Scott Walker wants war anywhere and everywhere

Updated - DesmoinesDem of the Bleeding Heartland in Iowa repeats an assessment that Scott Walker remains the leading Republican presidential candidate for the Iowa caucuses, a view sustained by the Des Moines Register's just-published Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa poll.

Walker's inability to coherently answer a follow-up question in an interview with Martha Raddatz of ABC News on national television will add to Walker's stature among Iowa Republican caucus-goers, and will lead Walker into ridicule territory for most everyone else.

Walker appeared stumped when Raddatz asked for an explanation of what Walker means when he said the United States needs to be "very aggressive" in foreign policy.

Walker responded that U.S. foreign policy needs to be prepared contra President Obama for "boots on the ground" .... "anywhere in the world," policies "that don't allow those [ISIS] measures, those attacks, those abuses to come to our shores." (Milewski, Capital Times) (Peterson, Democurmdgeon) (DeFour, Wisconsin State Journal)

That 'aggression' in international relations and international law is considered a crime seems to have escaped Walker's extemporaneous responses to Raddatz' follow-up. (See Harris, Robert H. Jackson Center and Wilmshurst, United Nations)

"Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has surged to the top of the potential GOP presidential field, said on 'This Week' Sunday that he wouldn’t rule out putting U.S. boots on the ground in Syria if he were the commander-in-chief." (Puckett, ABC News) (ABC News Transcript)

Waging a new war in Syria is crazy.

And casually stating an intention to go to war "anywhere" makes Walker appear more like Sarah Palin than say, Richard Falk, Chris Hedges or William J. Astore.

Scott Walker is an Evangelical extremist who is very weak on public policy, an odd defect for someone seeking the presidency, and he is finding hiding this fact can present problems as he appeals to fellow religious right travelers in Iowa.

Walker is already getting panned for "falling on his face" (Easley, PoliticusUSA) in a softball interview.

"When Walker says, 'I wouldn’t rule anything out,' does that mean that he hasn’t given much thought to any of these questions, or is he really that irresponsible?" (Larison, The American Conservative)
---
The winners of the past two Iowa Republican Caucuses are Rick Santorum (2012) and Mike Huckabee (2008), hence one can conclude the Iowa GOP caucuses are not instructive to whom the GOP selects as its presidential nominee.

But Iowa will present to the nation the personal weaknesses and ideological extremism that define Walker in Wisconsin as he is introduced via the Koch brothers and other billionaires.

At home in Wisconsin Scott Walker has waged 'aggressive' wars against domestic enemies such as the University of Wisconsin System, K-12 public education, the entire city of Milwaukee, fresh water and the state budget.

Michael Auslin writes in the National Review this morning:

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of this Slate article, 'Divide and Conquer,' by Jamelle Bouie. He has done the GOP a favor by revealing the Democratic party’s strategic plan for defeating Scott Walker in 2016: smearing him as a 'divisive' candidate who will send dog whistles to his white supporters and seek to run the table with the still-majority white voters to win the White House. ...

He is no popular media sideshow like Sarah Palin or Donald Trump. Nor does he have the electoral or familial baggage of Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. He is the real deal, a Midwestern conservative who has successfully taken on public unions and governed a center-left state.

I think that ship has sailed already; Walker is the most divisive and toxic figure in Wisconsin history since Joe McCarthy, and as Bouie in Slate notes: "Unlike Mitt Romney—who was merely adopted by the world of racially polarized politics—Walker was born in it and molded by it. As [Alec] MacGillis [TNR] notes, Walker’s home turf of metropolitan Milwaukee is home to 'profound racial inequality, extreme political segregation, [and] a parallel-universe news media,' trends that predate Walker, 'but have enabled his ascent.'"

Though much is made of Scott Walker (and former governor Tommy Thompson (1987-2001)) winning in blueish-state Wisconsin, Wisconsin's gubernatorial elections are held in midterm presidential election years when the turn-out is stronger for white, rural and older voters that trend Republican.

Neither Walker nor Thompson ever reached over across party lines, and both demonized the minority citizenry, with Walker merely radicalizing political tactics and trends that Thompson began with more subtlety and less venom.

Scott Walker is running underground—hiding from his association and with the his patrons, plutocrats, his criminal past, his radicalism and racism.

The idea that Walker could be a unifying figure is like calling Sarah Palin an imposing intellect.

MacGillis at TNR knocked down this nonsense down last year, but to anyone who knows Wisconsin politics at all—like Joan Walsh—this is simply an affirmation of the axiomatic.

The fact that Walker is a lightweight would just make exposing him to the nation an easier project for Hillary in 2016, no matter how many times Walker says, we have to invade and be very aggressive.

As Uppity Wisconsin notes: "Since Walker has become governor we're are experiencing a kind of anti-intellectualism that has only occurred below the Mason-Dixon line in the past."