Fischer vs. Keller: the Agitation in Frank-lun

For those who are missing the Cheddarshphere's best ongoing feud, there's still time to catch a pair of Franklin bloggers get absolutely catty!

Just to catch you up to speed...

On Tuesday, State Senator Mary Lazich got on her high horse to whine about the Gov. Doyle's claim that his administration was focused on "taxpayer protection." As she is wont to do, Lazich recklessly throws around numerous statistics and claims, such as "Wisconsin’s per capita income levels are some of the lowest in the country." That's just not true. Wisconsin is middle of the road -- and definitely not in the bottom 10 -- in terms of per capita income. I personally find this amusing because Lazich had "hoped the governor would cite this statistic" during his budget speech. Now we know why he didn't mention it. It isn't true.

So it should come as little surprise that several readers decided to push back on Lazich's inanity -- and push back they did! The comments section of the post erupted with criticism from all sides of the ideological spectrum -- left, right, libertarian each took their turn pissing on Lazich's argument to demonstrate how porous it was. Some examples:

So what massive cuts are you going to propose? How many thousands of state workers are you going to add to the unemployment lines? You are calling for clarity and concision. Start with some of your own.

And

If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem.

[...]

For the sake of taxpayers in need of protection, YOU are a DISAPPOINTMENT.

And

You've written about TAXES, TAXES, TAXES forever. Enough already, you've become a boring old school marm!!!! What about the reduction of spending!!!! Are you just afraid to stick your neck out or haven't your handlers provided you with a script yet? CLUCK!!! CLUCK!!! CLUCK!!!

And that's just from the first three comments!

Eventually the conversation careened back to Lazich's erstwhile support of TABOR way back in the day, and that's when the shit really hit the fan! It was getting so bad that Franklin-renowned windbag Kevin Fischer felt it necessary to intercede on behalf of his employer:

I challenge Fred Keller or anyone else to produce documentation that Senator Lazich voted against TABOR. No such documentation exists. Therefore, Fred Keller's credibility on past vicious attacks against Senator Lazich and any other blogs or comments he chooses to make about Senator Lazich in the future should seriously be taken into question or rejected outright.

Fischer also accused Keller of being on a "personal crusade to tar and feather Senator Lazich and to do so will print anything and everything, whether he has the facts to back it up or not." Got that?

At this point, its on between Fischer and Keller. Not only does Fischer throw the gauntlet down in the comments section, but he devoted an entire post to the subject on his blog, calling Keller a liar (and committing the faux pas of not linking to the person he is debating, I might add). Furthermore, in the comments of this post Fischer adds to his smears of Keller:

Fred Keller not only lied, he knowingly lied, and got caught. And now he's not man enough or decent enough to admit it, he's DEFENDING his lie. I thought he was a better person with at least some integrity and class. I was very wrong. But I guess there are some who buy into his philosophy that lying is ok if it benefits you.

So now Keller is now not only a liar, but he also lacks genitalia! This just keeps on getting better and better!

Keller came back later today with a post that reprints an old MJS piece observing Lazich's antipathy to TABOR, ending his post with this:

And this brings us to perhaps the most ironic thing about most talk show hosts, like Kevin Fischer. Though they may savage politicians and others they oppose, they fear criticism or critiques of any kind. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

Keller also lets a few links do the talking by including paths to various online pieces that refer to Fischer as "Perhaps no one exemplifies the sort of juvenile name calling that goes on better than Kevin Fischer," and "Kevin Fischer, an outspoken windbag."

So its getting personal...

I think all this business is awesome. There's just so much to enjoy here: the two guys involved here are basically neighbors, both geographically (they're both from Franklin) and ideologically (they both claim to be conservatives); they have two very different writing styles; and their respective views appear to be a mirror on local sentiment with regards to Mary Lazich.

Great stuff, all of it! If there's any way to throw more gasoline onto this fire, by all means do so!