Walker: Did I Mention That Executiving Is Hard Work?

During the budget process to set up the ready-to-fail 2010 county budget, Walker learned that "executiving is hard work." In what he thought would be a fine act of grandstanding, Walker couldn't stay between the lines with his veto pencil, and ended up giving sheriff's deputies eight days of furlough.

Walker was quick to backpedal, complaining that wasn't what he meant to do. Unfortunately for Walker, and for the deputies, it turns out that his blunder was legal, and that the deputies were included, regardless of what his intentions may or may not of been:

Domina's opinion flatly states deputies fall under the budget's furlough mandate.

"The floating furlough days imposed under the adopted 2010 Milwaukee County budget apply to employees in all departments . . . including, in particular, deputy sheriffs," Domina wrote in his opinion.

The issue arose shortly after the budget was approved last month and Walker said he hadn't intended his budget veto on furloughs to subject deputies to the eight floater furlough days. The budget also included four fixed-date furloughs that excluded deputies and jailers.

This must be particularly upsetting to Walker, since he planned on attacking Tom Barrett for giving police officers two furlough days, and trying to spin it so that Walker could look like he was the law and order candidate.

To make things worse, Walker's law and order meme gets totally trashed when Sheriff David Clarke stated that he was not going to follow the furlough. Walker, who was just told that the furloughs were the legal thing, quickly rolls over like a submissive puppy and says that he would not fight the Sheriff's stated intention to break the law.

The greatest blow to Walker must be that this is just another shining example of his incompetence.

After all, if he can't handle the county budget without making a mess of things, why in the world would anyone entrust him with a budget that is 50 times as big and much more complicated?