The Alternative Archer-Move Theory: Bice Is Wrong

Inspired by Playground and the info in today's JS about Ms. Archer, let's have a new theory.

Start here:  the Wisconsin Dep't of Children and Families has a lot of issues.  Fraud, mis-management, internal ripoff schemes, unfathomably dumb child-placement moves, all occurring within the last 2-3 years.

Kinda paints a picture for you, no?

Now look at Archer.

"She was extremely dedicated to the county executive," Supervisor Johnny Thomas said. "She definitely carried his water. She definitely had a drill sergeant's mentality. Everyone had to be walking at the same cadence."

...Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway said he and Archer "had a great relationship, which I never thought we'd have. I ended up liking her as a person and a manager."

Holloway recalled, "The first time she met me, she was a little scared. Behind my back, she was as tough as nails."

Holloway said Archer was "very pro-Scott" Walker and, at first, "wasn't able to be objective."

"We worked with her and she became an objective person," he said.

Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo said Archer was "a no-nonsense, get-the-job-done kind of person."

"Whenever I would ask for information from her, I'd just get it cut and dried," he said. "I found her to be refreshingly straightforward."

Thomas said Archer "stayed on message" and demanded that others follow her lead.

"They created an environment, if you weren't in line, you were gone" from the administrative services department, Thomas said. "That message resonated down to the employees."

Separating the typical Holloway egoism and political BS from the rest of the comments he and others made, what you get, net-net, is a tough, smart, demanding manager who didn't use BS and didn't accept it, either.

EXACTLY the sort of critter that DCF needs, desperately.  IOW, Archer is a trouble-shooter who has the confidence of the Governor and who can be expected to clean out an Augean stable, (which happens to be the subtitle of DCF in Milwaukee).

IOW, instead of assuming--as do Bice and a lot of others--that Archer took a reduction in salary because of some nefarious dark-of-night coverup scheme, let's think a bit differently:  maybe Archer took the job because Walker begged her to go into that manure-pit and fix it.  That would explain the jump in compensation TOWARD (but not equalling) her last salary at DOA.  That, and Archer's sense of 'duty.'

Of course, that means that Archer's declaration "I did nothing wrong" is true, and that may well be the case.  Based on the remarks made, even by people who are politically opposed to everything Walker did or said, there is not a hint of "dishonest" or "dishonorable" in the remarks.  And 'dishonorable' is the accusation implied in the other theory, no?

There's a lot of room for finding that Archer did not know anything, ever, about politicking with Gummint facilities and equipment.  There's also a lot of room to find that Archer never, ever, approved of such activity if she DID know of it.

In fact, based on the remarks in the JS article, there's a strong likelihood that Archer was entirely innocent and that the raid will find that that is the case.