Newsweek, for some reason, has decided to pay attention to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, doing fact checks on the proliferation of commercials being aired by candidates and interest groups.

Like most who have viewed the ads, it has been harsh on Micheal Gableman's campaign for its Willie Horton-style ad and misleading claims about Justice Louis Butler.

My personal favorite is what it had to say about the Greater Wisconsin Committee, an issue advocacy group for which I formerly worked as a consultant, and now serve as a board member.

It's become almost standard practice by so-called "good government" groups like the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which pretty much hates all campaign spending that isn't paid by the taxpayers, to use the word "shadowy" when referring to GWC.

Conservatives who find themselves on the wrong side -- the receiving end -- of GWC issue campaigns have taken up the terminology, right-wing bloggers always use it, and even some of the news media have picked it up.

You'd almost think the group's name was the Shadowy Greater Wisconsin Committee.

The Gableman commercial picks up the theme, although it doesn't mention GWC by name. Here's what Newsweek says:

Shadowy Group" Reemerges!

Remember the "shadowy groups" condemned by the Gableman ad earlier in this article? This is most likely a reference to the Greater Wisconsin Committee, which is out with a new radio ad once again questioning Gableman's ethics. (We've already reviewed one of its earlier TV offerings.)

First, we should say that this group is no more shadowy than the outside groups, like Coalition for America's Families, that have supported Gableman. They don't disclose their donors, but they're not required to. For that matter, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce doesn't either. The only real difference we can see is that GWC doesn't maintain a Web site. But finding the group isn't difficult. Wispolitics.com, a popular political Web site in the land of the cheeseheads, has a page on it and carries its press releases.

Sometimes it takes an objective look from the outside to see what should be blatantly obvious. Wanna bet whether "shadowy" goes out of favor?