Monday, March 09, 2009

Shady ORG Lies about Jensen Ties

Last week I wrote about the imminent launch of the latest right wing organization, The Maciver Institute. I titled that blog after former Republican Legislator Scott Jensen. Bruce Murphy from Milwaukee Magazine had been reporting for weeks that Jensen was trying to start this organization and that he had seen documents regarding potential pay. Last week after I posted my blog, The Maciver Institute launched via rushed press release and apparently without an executive director or a staff.

Right after their launch, the following report ran at Wispolitics:

It has long been rumored that former GOP Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen would be
associated with the group. But MacIver spokesman Bob Reddin said that while
Jensen was one of many people to offer the organization assistance and guidance
as it launched, he has no formal role. There are currently no plans to add him, either,Reddin said.

Scott Jensen has no "formal role" with Maciver? Well, as it turns out, Jensen is actually the person that is writing the Maciver press releases. If you take a look at the properties of the last two press releases that have been sent out by The Maciver Institute, the author of those pdf files is none other than Scott Jensen! I would say that writing multiple press releases for an organization qualifies as a "formal role." The bottom line is that The Maciver Institute and their alleged "spokesperson" lied about Jensen's role. When a spokesman and the organization that they represent tell a blatant falsehood, they should be given absolutely no credibility. Anything that they produce going forward is tainted and should be held completely suspect.

The Maciver Institute launched with a big thud over the last week, getting almost no attention for their launch or for their poll. Given their collective dishonesty about Jensen's real role, that should not change. If the media does decide to do any story on The Maciver Institute, it should first focus on why they were dishonest with both the media and the public and why they sought to hide the actual involvement of Scott Jensen.

UPDATE: And Scott Jensen's name also appears in the properties of the powerpoint presentation that is on their site.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

board member jim troupis is running for state bar president.i've told his campaign to take me off their mailing list because of his role in the search committee that got michael gableman appointed as a circuit court judge under dubious circumstances.