Saturday, February 7, 2015

WIBA's McKenna: Walker's change to Wisconsin Idea a "small story," making him the great defender of Academic Freedom.

I listened to a few minutes of Vicki McKenna's radio show the other day, and not surprisingly, her rap on Scott Walker's trashing of the Wisconsin Idea was front and center. Oddly, I also didn't hear anything that was true or made any sense. She jumped from one unrelated outrage to another.

In the tank for Walker, and why Republicans hate the UW: It's a lot of the same old conservatives stuff about the UW; victimized conservatives on campus are not allowed to speak out, they're not allowed to disagree, they're not allowed to defend traditional marriage, they're not allowed to defend the free market, they're not allowed to say they're Republicans. Who knew they were so afraid of liberals. Not exactly the strong and courageous leadership qualities we hear so much about;  standing buy their principles and fighting against their liberal oppressors. They're still a bunch of sad pathetic whiny victims in total control of the state.

What was McKenna's ironic defense of free speech? "With all due respect, shut up liberals."  

Anecdotal Outrage: Conservatives love to tell stories, fact free whoppers of opinion. McKenna said a listener wrote to her about a Black History month event at the UW that served "smoked salmon-at 11 bucks a pound, vegetable egg rolls...all paid for by taxpayers!" Really? The source of these anecdotal "facts?" As McKenna explains; "The very last thing he writes is, 'please keep me anonymous, as I don't want to lose my job.'" Another courageous conservative whistle blower...and coward.  

McKenna somehow tied Scott Walker's flippant anti-intellectual rewriting of the Wisconsin Idea into free speech outrage. Even though it was Walker who scratched out the line ("basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth"), and tossing it off as unimportant, McKenna accused liberals of doing what Walker did, saying "you're not allowed to search for the truth." My head hurts.

McKenna mixes up public with private university: Laughably, Vicki thinks liberals should defend the free speech rights of a professor at Marquette, a private religious university. Private colleges can do pretty much anything they want, without government interference. That should make Republicans very happy. But public colleges can't. They have to answer to the taxpayers. McKenna doesn't get it. It's one of the many downsides to privatized education.

As a former talk show host who sat across from McKenna for one long nightmarish year trying to get a word in edgewise, the example below is an embarrassing content free low for the profession.


1 comment:

  1. If I was Barry Alvarez, I'd head over to Fish Hatchery Road and remind the folks at 1310 that much of their listenership is due to them being the Badger flagship station. Or pull them off the station entirely, as they did with 620 in Milwaukee

    Seriously, how does that Icki no-talent keep getting hours of access to the airwaves? It's well past time to tell IBA to take out the trash

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