JS gives Johnson a total pass on Great Lakes oil

You may be surprised to hear this, but Senate candidate Ron Johnson is a big environmentalist who's totally opposed to drilling for oil under the Great Lakes. Always has been.

At least that's the line the Journal Sentinel editorial board swallowed and is now peddling to the public.

To help Johnson make his case that he opposes drillling and Russ Feingold is lying about him, the newspaper even cleans up Johnson's quote for him, rewriting the history that began the dispute over the issue.

You may recall this:

 Asked, "Do you want to open up more of the United States - the continental United States - to drilling. I mean, would you support drilling like in the Great Lakes for example, if there was oil found there, or using more exploration in Alaska, in ANWR, those kinds of things?"  Johnson said:

"Yeah. You know, the bottom line is that we are an oil-based economy. There’s nothing we’re going to do to get off of that for many, many years, so I think we have to just be realistic and recognize that fact. And I think we have to get the oil where it is, but we need to do it responsibly."[WisPolitics, Interview, 6/14/10]

Here's the Journal Sentinel version of the same quote:

Johnson said in part, "We have to be realistic and recognize that fact, and I think we have to get the oil where it is but we need to do it responsibly."

That was a general answer, and if the interviewer had followed up, the paper says, Johnson would have said he was against Great Lakes drilling.

Here's the most damning thing about Johnson's denial:

How would the editorial board explain the fact that after Johnson's interview appeared in mid-June, it prompted all sorts of criticism and coverage, on blogs, in news releases, in the media. When it was revealed that he owned BP stock, the issue flared up again and made a lot of news, and Great Lakes drilling was mentioned time and again in almost every story.

Johnson was under fire for what he said, but said or did nothing to correct the record.

A month went by before he put out a press release saying he was against drilling, after Feingold's TV commercial on the subject was already at the TV stations and within hours of airing.

This is a new standard for candidates, and a new low for the newspaper's editorial judgment. If candidates can change their minds a month later and pretend they never said what they said to begin with, how will voters know where they stand? They clearly can't rely on the TV commercials.

And they certainly can't rely on the Journal Sentinel to sort it out, either.