Dan Bice left out a key sentence that changes the context.
Stop the presses! The liberal media has a big scoop for you! Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gossip columnist Dan Bice has discovered that former Attorney General and current Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel was caught speeding three years ago.
The liberal media and Democratic operatives are desperate to cling to their partisan liberal Supreme Court majority so they can act as a super Legislature and undo common-sense reforms. So they’ve decided this is big news.
How insane is the reaction? One commentator on X even compared Schimel’s common-place speeding ticket (he was going 23 over on a state highway, the horrors!) to the infamous Kia Boyz, whose reckless driving and auto theft crime sprees were allowed to blossom through liberal policies on crime.
Even more egregiously, Bice deceptively left out a key sentence in the story. He’s done this kind of thing before: Not present the full quote so people can see the mitigating part, which changes the context. In other words, he’s left out the part that hurts the narrative.
For example, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s headline blared, “I’m a judge in Waukesha’: Brad Schimel told cop of his judicial post during traffic stop.”
The Journal Sentinel went so far as to get body cam video of Schimel’s speeding ticket traffic stop! But that video reveals that the cop, who had no idea who she had stopped for going 78 in a 55 in the routine traffic stop, said, “Do you have any warrants, probation issues, anything like that I have to know about?”
Bice wrote only, “That’s when Schimel responded that he was a Waukesha County judge.”
Actually, what Schimel said in full was, “No, I’m a judge in Waukesha. It would be contrary to my job description.” We bolded the part that Bice left out of his story.
The problem is that the line Bice left out of his story makes it clear to a fair reader that Schimel was not trying to get preferential treatment when he made the remark. Many readers won’t get past the headline or the first part of the story, of course, so the damage is done.
It’s similar to how the media left out the context of former President Donald Trump’s supposed comment that Milwaukee was a “horrible city.” Actually he was talking about how horrible the crime rate and election integrity issues are in the city, according to seven members of Congress who were actually in the room.
You know, unlike the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The media are also trying to make a big deal out of the fact that Schimel mentioned the name of Vince Biskupic, an Outagamie County Judge who ran for attorney general many years ago.
However, first of all, Schimel, a Waukesha county judge and former Waukesha County DA, was stopped in Shawano County, so it’s far from clear that mentioning the name of a judge in a neighboring county would mean anything to the state trooper.
Secondly, the body cam video shows Schimel was just responding to a question from the cop who asked, “Where you headed to? Are you from Waukesha?” He then answered where he was headed to: “Yeah, Vince Biskupic’s cabin would be up there.”
The entire top of Bice’s article is obnoxiously slanted to imply that Schimel was seeking special treatment, even though the actual evidence does not back this up. That’s editorializing. It’s unclear whether his article is attempting to be a news story or opinion piece.
“Being a judge gets you a lot of things. Community status, cool robes, cushy hours and a sweet pension,” Bice sniped. “But here’s one thing it doesn’t get you: An exemption from driving infractions. Somebody needs to tell that to Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel.”
There’s no evidence, though, that Schimel tried to get one. In fact, the cop told Schimel, when she reduced the ticket to 70, “That’s what I’d do for any other person, OK?”
