It's Not the Budget!

Since the protests in Wisconsin began Rachel Maddow has been trumpeting that it's not the budget it's politics. It's a plan to dismantle the last stronghold of Democratic support. When SCOTUS affirmed that corporations can fund campaigns willy nilly; Republican majorities are secured for the rest of the century.

Now a strange voice is echoing this sentiment... Shepard Smith, from Fox News:

On Wednesday's "Studio B," Shepard Smith said the battle over union rights in Wisconsin was all about busting unions and securing Republican political power, not about the state's budget deficit.

It was a take that placed Smith squarely in agreement with people such as Rachel Maddow, who has repeatedly argued essentially the same thing on her show.

Speaking to a mostly-in-agreement Juan Williams, Smith said the fight was "100 percent politics."

"There is no budget crisis in Wisconsin," he said, adding that the unions "[have] given concessions."

The real point of the fight, Smith said, could be found in the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns. Seven out of the ten donated to Republicans; the other three were unions donating to Democrats.

"Bust the unions, and it's over," Smith said. He then brought up the Koch brothers, the billionaires who have bankrolled much of the anti-union pushback in Wisconsin. The fight, Smith said, "started" with the Kochs, who he said were trying to get a return on the money they donated to Walker's campaign.

"I'm not taking a side on this, I'm just telling you what's going on...to pretend this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey," Smith said.

One truth speaker at Fox? I see the four Horsemen on the horizon