Lawton, Bader and the Inevitable Clusterfuck Just Waiting to Show up in a Courtroom Near You

Bravo, Jerry Bader, you truly are an epic fuck up of monumental proportions!

I have to admit that the salacious details of Bader's "scoop" yesterday were just too tantalizing to ignore outright at first, but it didn't take long for us to recall the adage that if something is too good to be true, it probably isn't. Then we actually listened to Bader's "Bonus Listen" and had a pretty good feeling this was all just a ton of bullshit.

Here's the text of the audio. All the emphases below have been added:

Good afternoon, this is Jerry Bader with a "Bonus Listen." This is a follow up to a story breaking in Wisconsin today, Lieutenant governor Barabra Lawton announcing that she will not be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor: This bombshell dropped about 11:00 this morning. She said for very personal reasons.

I've been working the phones all day Here's what I can tell you: I am reporting this factually.

It has been a somewhat open secret in Madison for years that Barbara Lawton has an open marriage and that those relationships she has within the marriage are with other women. This has not been a tightly kept secret, it has been known more than in her inner circle.

I have learned that somebody was about to expose at least one of those relationships. What I am told from sources is a scorned lover -- and the phrase that I heard is "attatched to the building," in their words, a member of the Doyle administration or a staffer of the Doyle administration, a woman, had a relationship with Lawton, she is scorned, and she was going to expose that relationship.

I have been told that she had visual evidence of that relationship. Again, this comes from a number of sources in Madison and I am reporting factually that it is a lover scorned.

Again, I am reporting factually that these are the reasons that Barbara Lawton is not running for Governor, that she has had a gay relationship with a woman who is described as attatched to the building that would mean a staffer.

Obviously this would raise sexual harrassment issues.

Again, this coming at 11:00 this morning -- shocking both sides of the political aisle Barbara Lawton's announcement, nobody saw it coming, she described it as for very personal reasons. Again this comes from multiple sources in Madison. More to come on the show and throughout the day on FaceBook and Twitter and at WTAQ.com.

We couldn't escape Bader's repeated use of the word "factually" throughout his report. Bader could have just said that he heard from reliable sources that so forth, etc. Instead he ascribed factual certainty to his claim -- not once, not twice, but three separate times during his report! No lawyer in his or her right mind would have signed off on that type of language, which likely meant it was not properly vetted. If a legal team didn't look at it, then chances are neither did a fact-checker. There's also no indication that Bader sought a comment from Lawton or her staff, something that would absolutely be required by "actual" journalists when breaking a story of this nature.

Bader's half-ass "correction" is no less asinine, but not for legal or journalistic reasons. It's just a cop out:

11:23 AM STATEMENT FROM JERRY BADER CONCERNING THE BARBARA LAWTON STORY:

I HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN THE SOURCES THAT PROVIDED INFORMATION YESTERDAY REGARDING LT. GOV BARBARA LAWTON. THEREFORE I CANNOT STAND BY THE STORY POSTED YESTERDAY.

(use of obnoxious caps in the original)

After you fuck up this royally, you issue a public and personal apology to the person you just slandered. You beg for forgiveness, not shift blame to the credibility of your sources. Yesterday Bader's Blog was bragging about how he had the best Democratic sources of any conservative talk radio host in Wisconsin, but today it's all his sources fault. Bullshit: this is entirely Bader's mess and he would be well-served to own it.

Lawton has every right to be as pissed as she sounds, and if I were the WTAQ management I wouldn't just fire Bader, I would stick his head on a pike and present it to Lawton on a silver plater and hope to God she doesn't include WTAQ in the inevitable legal preceding.