Jim Doyle earned the distinctive title of the biggest crook in Wisconsin history long ago. His predictable pre-election antics over Halloween weekend of attempting to solidify contracts for the unwanted, unpopular and unsupportable commuter rail project create the perfect fairytale ending to the distinguished gubernatorial career of the all-time largest looter of the people of Wisconsin.

While legendary in scope, Doyle’s propensity for whoppers transcends even some of the most notorious liars in history, rivaling even our current young President’s masterful talent. Throughout his entire career, Doyle has never felt the need for stealth or cover when lying to the public. In his first run for Governor, Doyle explicitly stated that we must not and he will not raise taxes. That died immediately upon his election.

His opposition to Indian Casino interests magically changed when huge donations from the Forest County Potowatomi and other tribes rolled into his campaign coffers and morphed into a unconstitutional forever deal. Luckily this deal was confirmed to be unconstitutional but the support of the 800 pound casino interest gorilla became forever chained to his campaign fund.

Doyle’s entire record as Governor is a gigantic collection of no bid contracts, enormous pay-outs to political support groups, and shakedown of businesses and individuals for campaign contributions.

His payback to the Teacher’s union (WEAC) by eliminating the QED allowed them to raid the taxpayers of Wisconsin for even more lavish compensation, benefit and retirement packages while building up their available cash to direct to progressive causes.

Trial attorneys received all kind of payback legislation including insurance mandates and removal of award caps for certain types of cases.

And the Indian Casinos have seen a plethora of benefits eliminating competition and insuring windfall profits for perpetuity.

Mr. Dennis Troha, in the midst of fulfilling his fealty to the great and powerful Doyle for gaining the Governor’s support for the Kenosha casino deal he was spearheading, got sidetracked by a Federal investigation which led to his indictment and subsequent guilty plea of making illegal campaign contributions to Doyle. What a surprise! Not that Troha was making illegal contributions to Doyle but that the Feds actually got involved in attempting to stop it. How Doyle and his administration managed to escape inclusion in this indictment remains a mystery.

Doyle apparently is not required to follow federal law as the rest of us are. Just look at the 2008 election. Federal law mandated correlation of voter lists to eliminate duplicative, obsolete and, yes, fraudulent registrations in an effort to reduce voter fraud. Doyle ignored this directive for years and directed his people to do so, according to some inside sources.

Even when Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued to have the requirements of this law fulfilled, the excuse was that it was too late and no effort was made to rectify the situation, even though obvious human means were available to actually accomplish this feat. Fraud continued at record levels in 2008, aided and abetted by Doyle’s multiple vetoes of a Voter ID bill. Doyle snubbed his nose at federal election law and got away with it.

Sound like Chicago politics? It is. In fact, Doyle and people in his administration, including Marc Marotta, cultivated a very close relationship with then Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his minions including the federally convicted racketeer Tony Rezko and Blago’s top money man, Christopher Kelly (also known as Individual B in the Rezko indictment).

These people organized a fundraiser for Doyle in Chicago which netted Doyle’s campaign fund a myriad of Illinois contributors including $10,000 from Kelly (Individual B). Blagojevich has since been convicted of attempting to sell Barock Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat, removed from office and on to the reality television circuit.

Doyle learned the lessons of the Chicago machine well – get money upfront, payback with no-bid contracts, exclusive legislation or vetoes as required, then make sure the pipeline stays full. Continual money flow requires a continual chain of veiled threats and intimidation tactics to be sure supporting constituencies and individuals know just who is in charge.

Just ask developer Mike Mooney, the Wisconsin Realty Association and the various home builder’s groups. In a presentation during the 2006 campaign, Doyle made it clear that if the groups supported Mark Green in the upcoming election they would be on the outs with his entire administration. To their credit, the various groups did not capitulate to the blackmail and overwhelmingly voted to support Green.

So what does Chicago politics, backhanded threats and backroom deals lead to? Stealing, of course. To provide a “balanced budget” when it becomes physically impossible to do so using generally accepted accounting principles you start by stealing from the Transportation fund. As the budget hole grows you then steal the Physician’s Insurance fund. Then, since the hole keeps growing exponentially, you steal from next year’s revenues.

The result? You slink away from reelection on some bogus moral grounds that you believe in only two terms for the Governor, leaving an enormous financial hole of at least $3 billion for the next poor sot “lucky” enough to be elected Governor. Luckily for us, the next Governor will be Scott Walker, and he will do the real things that will need to be done to get our spending binge under control.

But that’s not good enough for Doyle. No, not being content with having looted the people of Wisconsin for $3 billion to pay off political cronies and special interests, he’s got to leave his legacy. In his mind, his legacy fantasy enshrines Doyle as the “Green Governor” that brought wind farms to Wisconsin and his crowning achievement, a “high speed” rail connection between Madison and Milwaukee, ultimately connecting to Chicago and Minneapolis.

Since Walker unequivocally opposes this financial and logistical trainwreck and has promised to kill it, Doyle has done everything in his power to put this train deal on fast track to secure contracts for cronies. He came back from some “very necessary” state business in Spain and promptly provided Spanish trainmaker Talgo with a $45 million no-bid contract.

Who cares that a Milwaukee trainmaker already exists that could do the job with existing Wisconsin workers?

Doyle secured all moneys he could from the Feds even though he knows the state will be on the hook for hundreds of millions when the project gets scuttled. He made sure communities like Oconomowoc considering the wisdom of becoming a station stop on the route did not have the information needed to know actual costs, both initial and ongoing.

The information void guaranteed that an intelligent discussion and informed decision could never occur. Then he awarded contracts to engineering firms and other contractors on the eve of the election to ensure some payout to cronies and supporters.

Lastly, after the election, he enlisted the help of his media pals and left-wing organizers to paint the Governor-elect as a heartless Wisconsin jobs killer in some mirage that these illusionary jobs have some intrinsic merit.

This last stunt will probably result in the heist of at least $100 million of our money and possibly much more. We won’t know the full extent of the damage of the Doyle wrecking ball until he’s fully gone.

In the meantime, we must do everything we can to vocally and vociferously support Scott Walker in not only killing this train boondoggle but making the cuts and reductions in state government that must be made to escape the enormous tug of the fiscal blackhole Doyle has dug for us. This will mean taking on WEAC, the UW System and the State Employees Unions, all entrenched constituencies loyal to Doyle and living off big government largess. The troughfeeders will not go quietly.

As for Doyle, he needs to be convicted of the crimes he has committed. We all know what theft is – the taking of other people’s property. He has certainly done this. How the loot is used after the heist does not matter.

Some may say theft is too strong of a word, that he was just doing his job and you’re demonizing him for a difference of policy opinion. To this I say – OK – let’s look at this a different way.

According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, malfeasance is defined as “wrongdoing or misconduct especially by a public official.”

Fiduciary (adj.) is defined as a) held or founded in trust or confidence, b) holding in trust, and c) depending on public confidence for value.

I think it is impossible to refute the following statement with regard to Jim Doyle’s record as Governor: Jim Doyle is guilty of malfeasance in public office by ignoring and compromising his fiduciary responsibility to the people of the State of Wisconsin as their Governor. He needs to be held accountable for this malfeasance.

The bottom line is this: if we the people tolerate crime and corruption in public office, if lying is rewarded with election and power and money, and public officials are not held accountable for their crimes in the same way as regular citizens, then we will get the government we deserve.

When Al Gore can perpetuate a scam like man-made global warming and reap hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth from it without repercussion, something isn’t working.

Jim Doyle has violated state and federal law continually throughout his two terms as Governor and stolen billions of our tax dollars in the process, directing them to cronies and wasting more on projects he knows few support and have little if any value.

We need to insist he be held accountable for the colossal damage he has inflicted on the residents of our state, damage we will be repairing for a very, very long time.