Clearly the response to this story in various media outlets has become somewhat of a distraction for everyone. There are too many important issues at stake right now to have this accusation distract from the very serious issues facing us during this election. We stand by the article - the allegations have been made by a credible source, and we have done nothing but make those allegations public and to continue to further investigate them. The story will remain up on the site, but we have removed it from the front page, at least for the time being, in hopes that we can all move forward and talk about the issues such as the growing John Doe investitgation, and how it now appears to be growing into Dane County as well as Milwaukee County. The article remains on the site as part of Jud Lounsbury's blog.
There has been a lot of discussion today about the comment left on the original story by Dan Bice, in which the commenter claims to have spoken to the college roommate in question, and she verifies that she became pregnant in college, but that Gov. Walker is not the father. I spoke briefly via email with Dan Bice (of the Journal-Sentinel) and he confirms that comment was in fact made by him, and he confirmed this conversation with the woman. We will try to keep you informed of anything we find out about this story that will either prove or disprove it.
Many will not believe this story about Walker's possible behavior as a college student, and of course you are all welcome to your doubt. I personally have doubts about this story, and expect no less from our readers. But this story is currently flooding the Internet, and whether you choose to believe it or not it is going to be the subject of debate around water coolers everywhere tomorrow. This is not our normal style, and it will not become our normal style to report on this sort of story. But it's out there, and a big topic of discussion, as the amount of traffic to this story this morning demonstrates. I'm not at all certain that pretending that it is not out there is helpful, It is only one of a large number of stories about Scott Walker's credibility and trustworthiness, and most of those are more credible than this.
The events of the past year and a half have taken a big toll on the state, and it now is looking more and more likely that the strain will continue well past the election, no matter how it turns out. Take a deep breath, take this story for what it is worth. No matter what your beliefs are about this, please go to the polls on Tuesday and make your opinion known. We'll get through this.