Gard helps Crooks in Madison, hurts himself in Green Bay

Assembly Speaker John Gard has lashed out at Supreme Court Justice Patrick Crooks, calling him an activist judge. For a conservative, that is worse than calling someone a poophead or even a double booger.

Gard told the Capital Times, for some reason, that he's unhappy with Crooks , who sided with the court's three liberals - Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and justices Ann Walsh Bradley and Louis Butler - to create a 4-3 majority in two recent cases.

"They are the poster child for an activist, liberal court," Gard said of the four.

Well, that's just what Capital Times readers are looking for, so Gard has helped Crooks to sew up the far left in Madison.

Meanwhile, you have to wonder how that plays in Green Bay, which is Crooks' hometown, and where he was elected and reelected as a circuit judge for 20 years, before joining the Supreme Court.

Green Bay and Brown County are also part of the Congressional district Gard hopes to represent; he's a candidate in the GOP primary for the seat being vacated by Mark Green next year.

Was he trying to placate Mark Belling, who wrote recently that Gard had sold out the conservatives? Or was he just shooting off his mouth? Neither seems particularly smart.