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Daddy, is that you? (photo: WisPolitics.com/wikimedia)
This just hit the interwebs a couple of hours ago:
Bernadette Gillick was a college freshman in 1988 when she first met Scott Walker. It was spring semester, and she had just transferred to Marquette University. She was assigned a room in O’Donnell Hall (then a women’s dormitory), which she shared with her new roommate, Ruth (not her real name). Ruth was dating Scott Walker, who was 20 at the time, and, according to Bernadette, Ruth was deeply in love with him.
Midway through that spring semester, Bernadette alleges, Ruth found out she was pregnant. She informed her boyfriend, Scott, and initially he was supportive. That support changed to callous indifference for his girlfriend’s predicament after Scott informed his parents of the pregnancy.
Bernadette reports that at this point Scott began denying that he was the father of the baby, and when Ruth said she was considering an abortion, he claimed he didn’t care, as he wasn’t the father anyway.
Bernadette remembers being present when Ruth was dealing with the wrath of Scott’s mother, who allegedly admonished Ruth for trying to “ruin [her son's] reputation.”
A variation of this rumor was posted at Gawker late last month (like four days ago), though per then-Gawker writer Maureen O’Connor (who mentioned the rumor as one of the tips she received but never wrote up at the time) it was sent to her in February of 2011:
From: Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary
To: Maureen O’Connor
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 6:26 PMI have, at this point, what is just a rumor, but it’s one from a reliable source and would be a GREAT scoop if it could be verified. Our high school educated Governor Scott Walker is reported to have been tossed out of Marquette University for impregnating a married, 30 year old woman. He is SUCH a family values guy.
From: Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary
To: Maureen O’Connor
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:36 PMSource has ZERO interest in being outed or even speaking on the record. Clue: long tenured faculty member. Scotty’s wife can’t be (or very unlikely is)”the” woman—she was 30 when he was 18-19 and they aren’t that far apart in age. I wish I could give you any more information. I’m not sure if he was thrown out of Marquette or made a deal to leave. Marquette is either a Jesuit or Catholic college—not sure if there is a difference, I plead religious ignorance, and this was in the mid 1980s. Clearly someone made some noise to bring it to the point of his kick out/leaving. Somewhere out there is a[n out-of-wedlock] Walker kid about the same age as you are, though doubtful the last name is Walker.
As you no doubt have noticed, there is a major discrepancy between the two stories — namely, the age of the lady Walker allegedly knocked up and then abandoned. One has her as a thirty-year-old; the other, as an eighteen-year-old student and Walker’s girlfriend at the time. Though it could be that Walker’s people may have started the thirty-year-old impregnatee story as a way to defuse the story about the eighteen-year-old that the co-op just received; debunking the Gawker rumor would be a way to imply that the co-op story was false as well, in that most people would get the two stories confused.
Don’t be surprised if Walker chooses not to address this at all in the next forty-eight hours. This isn’t the sort of thing he wants to discuss, not now.
UPDATE: Conspiracy theorists might well wonder if these rumors are being released to distract from this bit of news:
With the recall election less than two days away, federal prosecutors are closing in on Governor Scott Walker, according to veteran political reporter David Shuster, former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, and former district attorney Bob Jambois.
In a conference call organized by state Democrats on Saturday evening, June 2, Shuster, Lautenschlager, and Jambois laid out evidence that Walker is a target of a federal investigation.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Communications Director Graeme Zielinski added that there is evidence of wrongdoing after Walker’s time as Milwaukee County Executive, and that the investigation includes criminal activity during his time as governor.
Based on conversations with a lawyer who has knowledge of the investigation, “We believe that Scott Walker set up a secret computer network in the governor’s office and Department of Administration offices, and that the John Doe investigation is seeking evidence of crimes he committed in Madison,” Zielinski said.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE 2: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Reporter Daniel Bice (or someone claiming to be him) allegedly got a hold of the former roommate of Dr. Gillick’s. The roommate says that Dr. Gillick must have somehow ‘confused’ her story with that of another person’s, because the roommate says that while she was pregnant, Walker wasn’t the father. And that is likely to be that. (And the persons on the Barrett side who have been working to squelch this rumor can breathe a sigh of relief as the focus can go back to GOTV and Scott Walker as John Doe.)
36 Comments
Very interesting, I’d like to see his reaction to a “love child” question tho; but your right, probably too little, too late for this to effect Tuesday’s election.
Dems needed something like this a couple of weeks ago. Closet skeletons are so much fun, great for headlines, but it takes time for stinky dirty little secrets to spread.
If little Scottie doesn’t get recalled, besides being a cryin’ shame for all the work thats gone into it, he may well become the Repukes likely frontrunner nominee in four years, the Kochs seem to like union killers.
If the Eurozone debacle blows up, Romney probably boots Obama this November of course. Scottie for VP? The vetting folks will surely be looking into this.
Given time, and a book deal to the “reluctant lady”, this rumor may get legs. Rcmd
If the newer rumor is true, then how he responded says a lot about his selfish character.
Yes, yes, bring it out, expose it, expand it, prove it! But hurry, time is of the essence!
There is more than a major discrepancy. These are two completely different stories, unless Bernadette Gillick was the husband of the thirty year old married woman.
gang — what started out as a legitimate battle about how working people are treated in Wisconsin seems to have morphed into a mud fight of personal attacks based on questionable anonymous slurs. The progressive movement has higher ideals than this.
Thanks for bringing this most important issue forward. We wouldn’t want this Wisconsin recall effort to be focused on what the issue was that initiated this recall in the first place would we? The Wisconsin budget problem created by Barack Obama using our tax dollars to fight these dirty wars for occupation instead of funding our public schools and other human needs.
I noticed, at the last minute, the Democrats brought in a stellar model of morality, ethics and integrity— Bill Clinton— to help shift the the focus of discussion away from working class issues, too.
How did this election become focused on every issue under the sun except for the issues of worker’s rights and living standards which this entire struggle began with?
Now can we return to the most fundamental question of American politics:
Where was Barack Obama born?
Seeing as how it is Sunday, let’s all thank God for the Democratic and Republican party hacks like the pseudonym toting Phoenix Woman for helping to confuse and disorient people from the main issue in Wisconsin— oh, yes, Tom Barrett wouldn’t have a chance in hell getting elected if these Democratic Party hacks like Phoenix Woman stated the fact that Tom Barrett wants to become governor so he can give public workers back their rights so he can negotiate with corrupt union leaders the same attacks on worker’s living standards that Scott Walker achieved through dictate.
Two Wall Street parties both attacking working people as they both hypocritically claim the mantle of family values, morality and ethics.
Has anyone heard the rumor that John Edwards “love child” is being groomed by the Democrats to run for the presidency?
Have I achieved in this comment what every Democrat is hoping I would not ask:
How is Barack Obama’s Wall Street war economy working for you?
Well, Phoenix Woman; how is Barack Obama’s Wall Street war economy working for you— and how is it working out for the people of Wisconsin?
I noticed Bill Clinton— remember the stain on Monica Lewinsky’s dress— didn’t ask this question in Wisconsin, either— afraid it might bring the discussion back to the little insignificant matter of “budget priorities,” eh?
Wisconsin’s election involves just three issues:
1. Worker’s rights.
2. Worker’s livelihoods.
3. Budget priorities.
Surprise, surprise; Democrats and Republicans have managed to evade ALL three of these issues.
Thank you Phoenix Woman for helping to enlighten us on Scott Walker’s sex life.
Thank you Phoenix Woman for providing us with one more reason why working people should tell the Democratic Party to go to hell.
Too bad there weren’t a few more weeks left to the Wisconsin campaign because I am sure Democrats would bring some young woman or young man forward insisting Scott Walker submit to a DNA sampling.
Working people were pushed out of the streets and into the arms of their “protectors,” the Democrats, and into a recall campaign instead of encouraged to consider a general strike so the recall election could pivot on these kinds of issues— brilliant political strategy.
Yes, indeed. This is not helpful. If there is a child, I hope he/she will forgive this heartless attack.
P.S.— Phoenix Woman, is there any truth to the rumor that you are the illegitimate daughter of Walter Mondale?
That’s precisely why I brought up the fact that there are two variations of this story out there, rather than jumping on it with both feet. I’ve seen previous situations where a demonstrably-false story was created and then debunked in order to hide/obscure/debunk by implication but not actual proof a much more credible rumor, and I’ve also seen situations where both rumors were totally bogus. The fact that neither Walker nor the Marquette administrative staff have been forthcoming about why he suddenly left without graduating lends itself to such rumors.
As for the Barrett folks, most of the ones I’ve seen online see this as just another distraction and are urging people not to go around spreading it as fact.
Hi, Daddy!
greybeard your so right. The pathetic irony of American politics today. 100,000 demonstrator’s efforts last year is old news, yet the titillation of our libidos by some sex and tell rumor may capture enough media attention to close the deal. Carl Rove is ticked someone else is using dirty tricks too.
Let’s game this out and assume for purposes of discussion that a) it’s true and b) Walker had the brains to ‘fess up to it to whoever he has doing his anti-oppo work. (“Oppo” being “opposition research”, namely “stuff your opponent would rather not see being made public”.)
As we’ve seen with John Edwards, a story like this can be a career-ender, especially if the pol in question is a Democrat, as Democrats are held to higher standards than are Republicans. The advantages for Walker here are that a) he’s a Republican and automatically gets press leniency thanks to FOX News and its imitators, and b) the incident happened long enough ago that his anti-oppo people have time to figure out how to deal with it.
The ideal way to deal with a situation like this — one where most if not all of the parties involved want to keep it secret — is to make it appear that the story is false. And the best way to do that is to create a similar, but obviously false, story, and hope that they are confused in both the journalistic and public minds, much as the alleged “debunking” of the Killian memos made the press shy away from outright asking GW Bush “Where’s your DD-214?” (Bush never did release his DD-214, by the way. He had the press come into a room for half an hour and look at various other documents, then shooed them away. But not his DD-214, which would have settled the matter instantly.)
You have to bear in mind that Scott Walker is a hardcore nondenominational Evangelist and was brought up that way. If true, this would be yet another example of “do as I say, not as I do” from him.
Of course, the Evangelicals always give themselves mulligans on this sort of thing, so it’s not likely to affect their support of him — unless they focus in on the idea that he may have countenanced his girlfriend getting an abortion (which she ended up not doing).
Too bad for your theorizing that most Barrett backers I know are ignoring this story and won’t touch it. But hey, whatever trips your unelectable trigger. (And why do I have the feeling that if this were about a Barrett love child, you’d have been the first to attack Barrett and to unquestioningly pass along the rumor without noticing the various discrepancies and variations?)
Alan, I thought this was tongue-in-cheek Sunday. Your so serious. Of course its a crying shame that the polls show a toss-up instead of a slam-dunk recall. Heck, a lynchin’ woulda been fine with me, a hundred or so years ago.
Ed Shultz said money spent is 10 – 1, or some crazy high ratio, I can’t remember cause it was too painful what the Citizen’s and Koch conspiracy has done to Democracy. If ol Scottie looses, it won’t be over till the SC and Scalia says its over anyway. Democracy’ been dead for awhile, this is all puppet show now.
Oh, AM’s always posting his novella-length phillipics at me. Tl;dr.
In any event, the Walker recall isn’t the end. The other big news connected to him — big enough that I almost wonder if the love child story wasn’t leaked as a way to distract from it — is that Walker is a target in the Federal investigation of his activities as Milwaukee County Executive, the post he held before becoming governor.
In addition, there are three other recalls on the Wisconsin ballot, all for Republican state senators. Those will determine if Scott Walker still has a lockstep legislature come Wednesday morning.
Are you serious about the John Edwards comparison? It was a career ender because he was married, it happened during the election cycle and he diverted campaign resources. In this case, Walker was single and not yet 21. This is is starting to feel sort of desperate to me.
calm down!
USA democracy died a long time ago
who cares about Budgets?
did bush jr start two wars? yes
do wars cost a lot of money? yes
did bush jr cut taxes? yes
taxes help the GOVT raise money? Yes
after cutting taxes and starting two wars? bush and obama both want to scream about deficits? Yes
scott walker is getting what he deserves for LOL
the elites will hate the day they put OBAMA in the WH
OBAMA generates rage from both the LEFT and RIGHT
go get some pop corn Alan Maki this Kabuki show is just getting started
What is your evidence for stating that the union leaders are corrupt?
Phoenix Woman writes about the rumors circulating and urged caution. You do her a disservice. Apologize.
“Desperation”? Geez Louise, dude, calm down. I’m trying to figure out where and why and what (and who benefits), rather than just repeating things uncritically, and you’re freaking out.
Face it: If John Edwards were a Republican, Rielle Hunter would have been made to go away with about $10 million in cash from any of the GOP’s billionaire backers, and her lips would have stayed zipped.
Think about the cases of David Dreier and Jim McGreevey. Both prominent elected officials, both accused in 2004 of having gay boyfriends on the public payroll.
McGreevey’s public disgrace and shaming was played out in the national media for most of the spring, summer and fall of 2004. Dreier’s fate was a lot less painful: The national media largely looked the other way, and Dreier kept his Congressional seat. His one misfortune was that he was denied further advancement when Roy Blunt conducts a successful whispering campaign against him (rumor is that Blunt was telling his House colleagues that their constituents, whom they’d just riled up to vote for a passel of anti-gay legislation, wouldn’t tolerate even a closeted gay man as House Majority Leader). Apparently frustrated with the stalling out of his career, Dreier announced some months ago that he wouldn’t be running for re-election. But at least he was allowed to quietly step down, and not be hounded from office.
The main difference? McGreevey had a “D” after his name, whereas Dreier had an “R” after his.
Thanks, M., but it won’t happen.
PW, thanks for the analysis, and WI thanks you!!
You have mentioned two choices: repeating gossip critically and repeating gossip uncritically. There was a third choice.
ewwwwwww
Thanks! I knew that this story was going to be out there soon, so I wanted to look at the different angles rather than just repeat it without comment.
By the way: The talk of how scandal affects Democrats and Republicans differently made me think of another instance, the background details of which were relayed to me by a party operative a few years ago.
Seems that, per the operative (and I must emphasize that this was strictly her word alone), a certain Minnesota Democrat was a very closeted bisexual complete with wife, kids, etc. He was told by the party bigwigs that he had to come out of the closet if he wanted to advance up the political ladder; they didn’t mind him being bi, they just wanted him to be open about it — the sad end of the heavily-closeted John Chenoweth made them determined to avoid seeing any more tragedies resulting from hiding one’s sexuality. Instead, he switched parties, where he soon found that the Republican bigwigs love closet cases: Their fear of blackmail makes them easier to control.
The story is out there already, in case you haven’t noticed. Ignoring it won’t make it go away.
I just put this in the body of the post, but figured it should go in the comments as well:
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Reporter Daniel Bice (or someone claiming to be him) got a hold of the former roommate of Dr. Gillick’s. The roommate says that Dr. Gillick must have somehow ‘confused’ her story with that of another person’s, because the roommate says that while she was pregnant, Walker wasn’t the father. And that is likely to be that. (And the persons on the Barrett side who have been working to squelch this rumor can breathe a sigh of relief as the focus can go back to GOTV and Scott Walker as John Doe.)
Speaking of Bush, he also had a similar story in his past. According to Larry Flynt, he got a young woman pregnant and arranged for her abortion when it was still illegal. However, Flynt claims the woman refused to go public.
Yes, I remember hearing about that.
As for the current stories, I do note that the Barrett ground workers are by and large staying away from them and working on GOTV and the Walker-as-Federal-criminal-target story instead; in fact, a number of them think the whole thing is a Walker dirty trick, as the original Wisconsin News Co-op story was posted by an anonymous non-member.
So the story that was out there and could not be ignored may have been an unsourced dirty trick? Yes, I will stay tuned.
Even if Scott Walker loses working people lose with Barrett and the struggle goes back to square one except the Democrats and corrupt labor leaders will squeeze working people further.
Which begs the question: When will the working class take up the challenge to free itself from this well-baited two-party trap?
Union leaders who forego the interests of the workers whose dues pay their big fat salaries and then join with politicians to undermine the rights and livelihoods of workers are corrupt.
If these union “leaders” want to work for the Democratic Party they should either do so on their own time or seek jobs with the Democratic Party.
To take money from workers under the guise that they will fight for the interests of working people and then turn around and undermine the interests of working people is the epitome of corruption.
I support working people voting for Tom Barrett because it is the only way to get rid of Walker at this time but no one should delude themselves into thinking that Walker and Barrett don’t share the exact same goals and objectives: to balance Wisconsin’s budget on the backs of working people.
The end result is the same: a decline in the standard of living for working people.
The initial struggle that brought about this recall election was to protect the rights and livelihoods of working people.
I do trust Tom Barrett will restore all the rights Walker took away but he will use the restoration of those rights to enter into negotiations with union leaders who have already agreed to negotiate concessionary contracts.
If Wisconsin workers are okay with having their standard of living reduced through negotiation rather than through dictate then this is their business and let them be happy with concessionary contracts they vote to approve.
We have the exact same crap going on here in Minnesota. A self-professed “liberal” governor, Mark Dayton, rammed a new billion-dollar Viking Stadium down our throats with the help of union leaders who are supposed to be looking after the interests of state and public employees whose dues pay their big fat salaries.
But, state employees in Minnesota have gone almost a year without a contract and these union “leaders” have already agreed they will settle for concessions and mass lay-offs and terminations.
In the past several months hundreds of state employees have been subjected to unfair and trumped-up disciplinary actions and firings with these union “leaders” doing nothing.
But, like a bunch of Dumb Donkeys, these union leaders go out and lead the cheers for a billion-dollar plus tax-payer subsidized football stadium boondoggle for a bunch of millionaire players whose “dalliances” and degenerate gang-bang rapes, barroom brawls and assaults make Scott Walker’s sexual escapades look like any ordinary preacher as the billionaire owners get to abscond with all the profits leaving our state mired in more debt.
Glad you finally acknowledge what everyone has seen all along— for you politics is nothing but a game played by a bunch of wealthy morons who are too chicken to play touch football. You couldn’t care less about the concerns and problems of working people. If you did care you wouldn’t indulge in all these petty issues.
Can you provide us with panties containing stains made by Scott Walker?
No, Barrett and his “backers” won’t touch the story because they rely on people like you to do this dirty work for them.
Who cares about who screws who when it is two consenting adults?
This is all part and parcel of the political circus we are provided with in this country passing itself off as “democracy.”
While these clowns bring their new acts to center stage working people are the ones getting f*cked.
Is this something like yellow journalism?