The MJS's story on proposed cuts coming down for Milwaukee County called to mind Bruce Murphy's May column on Scott Walker, in which he coined the phrase the Brawler borrowed for his headline.
Murphy's diagnosis is as on-target then as it is now:
There’s no doubt the county faces tremendous challenges. It may have to consider selling some asset (a sale of the airport is already being floated), it may need to petition the state for permission to raise the sales tax and it must find every way to cut costs. But it doesn’t help to run around town exaggerating the crisis while offering no plan to solve it.
The Brawler just finished reading Cobra II, the closest thing we have to a definitive account of the occupation of Iraq, from the planning through the war to the origins of the current quagmire. The Brawler was struck anew at how Donald Rumsfeld's stupidity -- he wanted to win the war with as few troops as possible to prove a pet theory even though his generals said you need boots to win the peace -- played a large role in where we are today.
Our country will be paying for Rumsfeld's ineptitude for decades, whether it's the damage to the image of our country abroad or the suffering of our thousands of wounded or the loved ones of those who've died
What price will Milwaukee County pay for the incompetence of its executive?
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