Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Walker's solution to avoiding tough foreign press questions: avoid foreign press

In seeking to avoid Christie-like performance with the press, Walker simply won't talk to London media

During his trip to London this week, Gov. Scott Walker will speak privately with UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

He’ll represent Wisconsin in a “trade mission.”

But he won’t talk to any press.

Citing an “extremely tight” schedule while overseas, Walker’s Press Secretary Laurel Patrick denied any requests for the governor to speak to the press.

“This is an official trip and the purpose of the trade mission is to promote foreign direct investment in Wisconsin,” Patrick added, “so it is vital that we keep the Governor's planned schedule.”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Fresh off his own stint in the UK, Gov. Chris Christie, another presidential prospect for the GOP, embarrassed himself with a slew of answers pertaining to vaccination.

Walker, ever the right-wing-media-darling in Wisconsin, knows he can’t control the foreign press message the way he can back in the Milwaukee media markets. So rather than make a fool of himself, he’s going to avoid the process altogether.

We’re getting a good glimpse of how Walker, as a potential head-of-state, will react to foreign issues: he’ll either be clueless on them or ignore them entirely.

We’ve seen that he can’t answer clearly or definitively on the issue of Syria, giving standard talking points about “going back to the red line,” but nothing of real substance. When pressed, he admitted to having a hawkish attitude.

Now we’re seeing that Walker’s latest foreign policy plan is avoidance. When confronted with foreign press, he simply won’t talk to them.

I guess that’s leadership, Scott Walker-style.

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