The Wisconsin State Journal's use of platitudes to advance a political position is nothing new, but it's significant when its reliance on vapid conventional wisdom brings it directly in conflict with the most obvious of facts. From today's denunciation of Sen. Jon Erpenbach:
The Senate Democrats who fled Wisconsin for Illinois last week need to do the jobs they were elected to do at the state Capitol in Madison. Running away from their problems won't solve them.
Actually, running away is quite clearly the only way to solve the problem. Otherwise the bill will pass!
Secondly, the Democrats aren't running away from their problems. They are confronting them in the most effective way possible. There is virtually no other means for them to prevent passage of the bill but to leave the state and hope that public pressure sways a few Republican senators to propose an alternative.
Running away from "their problems" would have been to do nothing at all to quietly cast their votes against the bill, make a speech or two, and then move on to a resolution congratulating the Packers.
Moving out-of-state for possibly weeks, away from their families and lives, means they are doing something about the problem.
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