David Crowley is becoming the Pinocchio of the Democrat primary for #Wisconsin governor. I’m half expecting his nose to sprout little flowers and a bird to land on it at this point. Tony Evers is Gepetto, desperately hoping to turn his wooden puppet real. So far it’s just a wooden puppet that doesn’t seem capable of telling the truth.
Did you know that the real Pinocchio, from Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel, wasn’t that sweet? He was “originally written as a cruel, ungrateful brat who met gruesome consequences for his behavior, making the story more of a cautionary tale than a whimsical fairy tale.”
A reader opines, “I wouldn’t trust anyone that Evers endorsed anyways.”
Honesty matters in a governor candidate, and I am starting to question whether Crowley has it. This is more problematic as he’s already being pigeonholed as the candidate handpicked by deceptive, secretive elites to take down the brash socialist who brands herself as “speaking truth to power.” We live in the age of authenticity. Voters value it. They don’t expect perfection from politicians; they just don’t want them to seem like one. Or speak in word salads.
Maybe Crowley should swap his fave Mickey Mouse T-shirt for Pinocchio’s red shorts. Oh wait. They both wore red shorts.
Mickey Mouse? What?
If you don’t get the Mickey Mouse reference, this is one of my favorite stories. Crowley, the Milwaukee County Executive, went on video recently to tout Marty Brooks, a top civic leader who later denied pinching the Common Council president’s butt. For some bizarre reason, Crowley went on a random, unrelated tangent about Disney and Mickey Mouse.
I’m sorry, but guys who are obsessed with Disney always strike me as a bit weird. I was just watching a Netflix true-crime documentary about some creepy US Marshal who frames his ex, and he was obsessed with Disney.
AG candidate Eric Toney is a Star Wars fan. That’s okay. Acceptable interest for an adult man. But being obsessed with Disney characters adored by kids is, as a grown man, weird. Crowley appeared in a promotional video before Brooks’ controversies and gushed, “I’m going to continue wearing my Mickey Mouse sweatshirts and hoodies just for you so we can have a good time and hopefully you’ll be able to take me to Disney World with all the great things you’re doing here in our community.”
The idea of Marty Brooks taking David Crowley to Disney World is a weirder thought than introverted Tom Tiffany crashing a Mandela Barnes’ lingerie party in his flannel shirt. “I’m here! I brought you a jar of my mom’s homemade pickles!” Mandela would roll his eyes with a friend and whisper, “How do we get rid of this guy? Do we have to let him in?” One whiff of the heavy smoke in the air, and Tom would realize he was at the wrong house.
Tall Tales Everywhere, I Say
Crowley’s been spinning some pretty tall tales since the establishment handpicked him to re-enter the race. I’ve counted possibly four tall tales in the span of a week.
He’s not lying about wild exploits like Baron Munchausen, though. It’s more similar to Bill Clinton hinging denial on the word “is.” He’s telling what may be little elaborate and semantics lies to get himself out of tough corners. But it’s becoming a pattern that’s only occurring because Gepetto Evers didn’t pick a guy who was vetted. David, please stop insulting our intelligence. I would guess no one really believes you. This is getting almost as ridiculous as Sara Rodriguez trying to say we should elect her because she had no idea what was going on in her own campaign. Almost.
“We’re not lying about anything,” insisted Crowley to the Milwaukee Courier (he also declined to label himself a capitalist in that interview and promised to support the woman who wants to abolish police and the U.S. Senate if she gets through the primary). As I said about Rodriguez, it’s never good when politicians defensively think they need to start a sentence with “I’m not… or we’re not.”
I am not a crook. I am not the person who screwed up my campaign, etc. I am not a liar. I did not have s*xual relations with that woman. I also learned from that interview that some people have dubbed Crowley “Kamala Crowley.” The Courier is one of Milwaukee’s three historic black newspapers. The reporter, Drake Bentley, did good work exposing Sara Rodriguez’s utility donation controversy.
He also falsely implied that Democrat Joel Brennan is a racist because he touted himself as the best candidate over three minorities. So Brennan isn’t allowed to say he’s the best candidate and the frontrunners can’t win? What? Drake worked for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and lots of other publications, and he’s got a take. But so do I. He’s becoming an important read in this race.
Let’s unpack.
Dirt McGirk
1. David, no one really believes that you barely wrote any of the posts on that crazy Dirt McGirk page that NBC News unearthed (well actually it was likely opposition research unearthed by some campaign and fed to NBC News.) I don’t know who.
I’d say, though, that Mandela Barnes and David Crowley probably know a lot about each other. They’ve navigated in the same small pond for years. Everyone I know is waiting with bated breath for anti-Mandela dirt to drop next. The only question is where it will drop. This is better than Tyson vs Holyfield. Maybe CBS News will get it next. This stuff used to be shoveled to the late Dan Bice, God rest his soul. Now it’s shoveled to national media to entice state media to engage.
David. Your selfie is on the Dirt page. Your birthday is mentioned. The author calls himself “DIRTY DAVE.” It reposted your personal page. And, frankly, the posts sound like the same person. Same voice and style. I know because I waded through them all. They are not, shall we say, gubernatorial. You probably think you can’t admit you wrote more of them because they offend core liberal constituency groups. Own it.
I’m more bothered by the fact you’re insulting our intelligence than about the fact you were a woman chasing, immature, bong loving, club going, goof 16 years ago. Or that the “people” who authored the page were.
You carefully admitted to only the posts that exactly match your life events (your paternity issue.) All suspects do this. Police know this. Suspects always admit to only the stuff the cops can absolutely prove. Just be honest. You wrote dumb sh*t when you were young. Instead, we get this nonsense:
“When asked today if he was 100% certain he didn’t write any of the offensive posts on the ‘Dirt McGirk’ Twitter account, David Crowley said, ‘Look, we would have to go through all of these different posts, but the ones that I’ve seen that were printed, I did not write those,’” WISN-TV’s Matt Smith wrote.
As my grandpa Detra would say, that’s a load of bunk. Who remembers what posts they wrote or didn’t write specifically from 16 years ago or whatever?
And then he blamed it on a dead man and like 10 people he wouldn’t name. Or dead people. Of course.
The ‘Unwritten Verbal Agreement’
2. David, no one believes that you just had some unwritten verbal agreement to pay taxpayers back for the campaign security costs you’ve dumped on the taxpayers.
You revealed the unwritten verbal agreement when you got caught. It’s sort of the equivalent of people who say, “I paid that back in cash” when caught with an accounting scam. That’s the kind of thing Fani Willis tried when she was outed going on those cruises and trips. Now, I guess it’s faintly plausible. But it’s pretty pat. And if you didn’t have a written agreement on this, you should have.
Didn’t Watch the Video Everyone’s Watching?
3. David, no one believes you are the only person in the state who didn’t watch that Madison police shooting video as you told the Milwaukee Courier. “I have not had a chance to look at the video. I know it has been shared. As you can imagine, there’s a lot going on.”
If he really didn’t watch it, he should have (and, yes, I know Tom Tiffany said he didn’t watch the Pretti shooting video. I didn’t believe that either.) But with Crowley this is starting to add up. The only way I believe this is if his campaign told him not to watch it so he could say he didn’t watch it.
My Pipes Are Bursting!
4. Crowley faced criticism for skipping a major forum put on by the Muslim Civic Alliance. Asked why by the Courier, he said, “Now, I wasn’t able to make that particular forum because I was under the weather. And plus, quite frankly, I thought my basement was getting ready to flood because we had some pipe issues. And so that’s the reason why I wasn’t there.”
He had pipe issues AND he was sick, and it hadn’t flooded yet but was about to? I’ll let you judge that one.
Poor Tony Evers is having a bad year. Remember when the queen had that terrible year with everyone in the Royal Family doing crazy stuff like Fergie sucking on some guy’s toes? She called it an annus horribilis. This is becoming Evers’ annus horribilis.
As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, Crowley was also accused of violating state campaign finance laws “by exceeding contribution limits and accepting illegal lobbyist donations,” according to the liberal Cap Times. Usually, the liberal media bend into pretzels to avoid writing stories that make Democrats look bad. That’s not true when it’s a Democrat primary and the oppo hits help other Democrats.
Hold onto your hat. The crazy is just getting started.
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