A new Thanksgiving cranberry dish

This week the Wisconsin State Journal did a great service to Wisconsin voters by dishing Attorney General-elect J.B. Van Hollen's conflict of interest on the cranberry case. Then they declined to eat their own creation when they wrote an editorial today saying the state should drop the lawsuit, but Van Hollen should not be involved in the decision.

How is that even possible at this point and why did they bother digging up this story? Van Hollen ran around the state telling anyone that would listen that he intended to drop the lawsuit if elected. His opinion is so intertwined with this story that there is no real way to remove Van Hollen from the decision now.

Do you think the employees of the Department of Justice are going to rock, paper, scissor for which unlucky guy/gal has to go tell the new boss that they aren't going to listen to him right from the moment he walks in the door? Or does it seem more likely that they will just drop the lawsuit?

Maybe it doesn't matter that the Wisconsin State Journal doesn't want to dig in or that Van Hollen's spokesperson is desperately trying to spin legal mumbo jumbo to keep the public from thinking Van Hollen is trying to corrupt the legal process before he even sits down at his new desk.

The court of public opinion will probably produce the correct judgment that Van Hollen is trying to pay back his employer for putting him on the payroll while he ran for office and some of his campaign donors for their support. Contrary to what some politicos think, the court of public opinion rarely gets those verdicts wrong.