No matter how you look at it, Gableman unfit to serve

Whether through insufficient memory or outright lies, Justice Gableman fails to serve Wisconsin

Illusory tenant has a brilliant post that digs deeper into the storytelling that State Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman has been up to lately.

Gableman made the claim that Justice Ann Walsh Bradley slapped him in the back of the head in front of other justices. But a few problems arose from his claim, including the date on which it happened as well as the fact that none of the other justices remember the event ever happening.

Both Justices David Prosser and Annette Ziegler told investigators (during the questioning involving Prosser's alleged neck-wrangling of Bradley) that they had heard of Gableman's fairy tale, but neither could say that they were present for it or actually witnessed anything like what Gableman described.

When previously confronted with a slip-up in his story, Gableman changed the facts of his story to fit the situation better. Will he do the same now, since no other justice is coming forward to corroborate his claims? It's rather odd that, according to Gableman's tale, out of a room full of his own colleagues none of the justices can confirm his account of what happened. So far, three have said it never happened, two have said that they've basically only heard the story from him, and one has had no comment on it. With this in mind, should we expect to hear a new explanation from Gableman next week?

Either way this pans out, there's a problem with Gableman. Either he has difficulties with his memory, in which case he may be mentally unfit to serve; or he has problems telling the truth, of fabricating a story to damage a fellow justice's reputation for political reasons, in which case he's ethically unfit. In both scenarios, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court is worse off for having Justice Gableman in its midst.