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Few remember the short and illegitimate second term of Wisconsin’s third governor, William Barstow, who was forced from office when it was discovered that his “re-election” in 1855 was the result of electoral fraud committed in the northern part of the state.  It took rival militia units moving on the capital and a rightful decision by the state’s Supreme Court to convince this pretender to leave office and leave town days after his inauguration. Barstow did do the right thing in the end.
 
We have yet to see such distinguished capitulation from The Pretender to the current Supreme Court of Wisconsin.
 
I'm talking of course about Michael Gableman.

Instead, "Justice" Gableman hides behind the robes of three his fellow conservatives on the state’s high court, pretending to wear similar garments he knowingly earned through electoral fraud.

This week, the three conservative activist justices on the court didn't see it that way. Like the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, these conservativeactivist justices resorted to politics to solidify an election result when they did not have the law or common sense on their side. They deadlocked 3-3 with their liberal colleagues on whether Gableman violated a judicial ethics rule by lying in a TV ad in order to fool voters into choosing him for a ten-year term on the Supreme Court.
 
Yes, lying remains illegal in at least one part of the political world where honor is still expected of its candidates. 
 
From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Gableman's ad ran in March 2008, as he conducted his campaign to defeat then-Justice Louis Butler Jr. It discussed the case of Reuben Lee Mitchell, a child sex offender whose case Butler worked on when he was a public defender.
“Butler found a loophole. Mitchell went on to molest another child. Can Wisconsin families feel safe with Louis Butler on the Supreme Court?" the ad said.
But it did not tell viewers that Butler was unsuccessful in getting Mitchell out of prison and that Mitchell served his sentence before committing the subsequent crime.
Gableman beat Butler with 51% of the vote in April 2008, defeating a sitting justice for the first time in four decades. After the election, the Judicial Commission filed a formal complaint that said Gableman violated the judicial ethics code by lying.”

Implying a causal relationship where none exists is a lie.  Every three year old in the state knows this.  Apparently, its one of the things they un-teach you in certain law schools.

Again - implying a causal realtionship where none exists AND YOU KNOW TO BE FALSE is a lie.  Anyone who does such a thing proves they lack judicial temperament and disqualify themselves from being fit for the bench.

Richard Nixon ultimately resigned when fellow Republicans could no longer stand with someone who had done something so wrong for such petty political reasons.  They rightly realized the ends in the case of Watergate never justified the means. 

Fortunately for America in 1974, there were demonstrators in the streets but no mobs. There was no need for militias like those that marched toward Madison in early 1856 when the population realized an election had been stolen from them and the state’s most trusted offices had been stained.
 
Perhaps we have outgrown the need for militias, but have we really outgrown doing the right thing?  The Pretender Michael Gableman is long overdue to leave office and leave town and restore some dignity to a court that is looking increasingly like it first appeared in John Grisham's dreams just before he wrote "The Appeal."