CHIEF FALLS FOR MCBROAD

ABOVE: WIFE, MOTHER, EDUCATOR, JOURNALETTE, MORALISTE JESSICA MCBRIDE BUCHER AS SEEN IN HER PROVOCATIVE FACEBOOK PICTURE

By Michael Horne

Chief Edward Flynn has admitted having an extramarital affair with journalist Jessica McBride, who had penned a glowing article about him earlier this year in Milwaukee Magazine. -- News Item.

"Why am I supposed to care if two people who love each other want to have that marriage acknowledged like others’ marriages are acknowledged? Why is that my business? "Why is that supposed to be bad? "What’s the harm?" -- Jessica McBride, in a May 2009 column supporting gay marriage.

I agreed with Jessica McBride when she wrote her defense of gay marriage.
If somebody in a gay marriage goes out and cheats on the other with a common home-wrecking tramp, then the aggrieved parties should be entitled to all the sympathy a civilized society reserves for the Scorned Spouse.
As it is now, gays do not enjoy the opportunity Ed Flynn and Jessica McBride have to violate their marital vows.


Likewise, this is the kind of story that might not have been known if not for a number of factors:

• One factor is the communications in the form of e-mails and a handwritten note mailed anonymously to Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel. That gave him something to work from. Even nowadays, good stuff like that usually goes to mainstream reporters like Bice.
  
• Second is McBride's standing (I almost said "status") as a journalist, and the ethics it is presumed she ought to have employed in writing her living hagiography of the dynamic chief. If the chief had been having an affair with a non-journalist, it wouldn't have been a story. (However, now that the floodgates are open, such an affair would be. I've already got a call in to Springfield, Massachusetts.)
  
• Third is the ethics and standards of professionalism Bice employed in repeatedly attempting to contact the parties in the love affair. Bice was actually prohibited from attending a police press conference where it was feared he might ask the embarrassing question. The chief twice refused to answer a face-to-face question from Bice. [More about that below.--Ed.] Such evasions might have deterred a blogger.
• Fourth is the status of Bice and the Journal Sentinel. Flynn might never have been forced into releasing a statement confessing his guilt to any but the traditional, mainstream media. Bloggers would have been stonewalled forever, and the affair relegated to a whispering campaign.
  

This affair is disturbing on so many levels.


Above: ANNE E. SCHWARTZ, PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER, MILWAUKEE POLICE DEPARTMENT -- It was in her office that the magic affair began, when McBridget and Flynn "locked eyes."

• "I think there was something from the moment we locked eyes in Annie's office," McBride wrote in a love letter to the chief. "Annie" is presumed to be Anne E. Schwartz, pictured above. It is very disturbing to think of any but the pulpiest novel or most sordid of love affairs to originate with a love story staged in the office of Annie E. Schwartz. Especially if she's watching.

• It is disturbing that Flynn invoked his image as the father of a police officer when he comforted Bryan Norberg and Graham Kunisch, two of his men injured in a gun attack.
• 
  
• It is disturbing that Jessica McBride at one time interviewed, as a journalist, the wife of the man with whom she was eventually to have an affair.
  

• Now that he has so thoroughly embarrassed himself, it is disturbing that Flynn will have to appear in public tomorrow, Saturday, June 20th, 2009, for a TY MPD Day rally to support his two officers. It was disturbing when John Norquist and Susan Mudd had to acknowledge his infidelity just when he was expected to make his Christmas season appearances. It takes something out of the spirit of the occasion.
  

QUESTIONABLE USE OF STAFF BY CHIEF TO EVADE ISSUE

If, as the chief said, "This is a personal matter that occurred in my private, off-duty time," then why did he instruct (or permit) his public, on-duty staff to forbid Bice from attending his press conference? Should the taxpayers finance paid staffers to suppress news about the chief's private, off-duty indiscretions?

--Michael Horne

FUN FACT!

The chief does not mention McBride by name in his written apology [pdf]. Wanna get Jessica mad? Tell her it's because he's already forgotten it!

--Michael Horne

Received a settlement in May, 2009 from Claremont Inn and Meeting Center for burns sustained by her unattended child while McBride was delivering a speech.