Apologies in advance to those who think this is nitpicking, but here's a line from today's Journal Sentinel story about the late Sen. Bill Proxmire:

"He paved the way for future Democrats like Gaylord Nelson and Jim Reynolds and Pat Lucey and Les Aspin," Ellen Proxmire said.

It's doubtful that Prox's widow said that, since she knew all of the politicos personally, including John Reynolds, who had a distinguished career as attorney general, governor, and federal judge.

But if she did have a slip of the tongue, how on earth did Katherine Skiba write it and the JS army of editors let it get into print?  Doesn't anyone there have any sense of Wisconsin political history?

While we're quibbling: Although Prox was elected before Nelson, Reynolds and Lucey, the fact is that the work those three and others did for the Democratic Organizing Committee in the late 1940s and early 1950s laid the groundwork for Prox's election in 1957, not the other way around.

Every now and then, someone just takes the words right out of your mouth.

In this case, it's the Brew City Brawler, who notes how the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel allows its Capitol reporter to characterize the health care plan passed by State Senate Democrats.  He expresses my sentiments exactly.   

The Brawler asks, as many have in the past, whether "reporter" Steve Walters is paid by the Republicans to propagandize on their behalf.

Others have speculated in the past about whether he was hoping the GOP would hire him. But why would they put him on the payroll, when he's already doing their PR for free?

It makes you wonder, assuming someone reads his copy before it goes to print, whether the editors agree with his assessment. They clearly made no effort to make his story objective.  (Or would it turn out that the editing process added the word "radical"?)