My 703rd post about Scott Walker... finally getting around to what Gail Collins wrote last Friday.

This blog has 703 posts with the tag "Scott Walker" and is at risk of becoming absurdly Scott-Walker-focused as the country-at-large suddenly trains its eyes on the man who became the governor of my state 4 years ago and touched off massive protests, endless legal proceedings, passionate criticisms, and a bonus political campaign in the form of a recall election.

I've had 6 posts about Scott Walker since last Friday — mainly on 2 subjects: his declining to answer the question whether he feels "comfortable with the idea of evolution" and his lack of a college degree.

I'm experiencing active pushback from commenters who seem anxious to get me to stop monitoring the journalism and commentary that's so suddenly raining down on Scott Walker. I get accused of being a "spokesperson" for Walker or a "big fan." The truth is, I have an aversion to politics, but I read the news and I vote. And I blog. I blog about Walker because he's a long-entrenched topic here and has been ever since my city became Ground Zero for Walker-hating 4 years ago.

At this point, it's very hard to deal with every Walker topic that comes up as it comes up, especially since I don't want to be an all-Walker-all-the-time blog. But after 4+ years of following Scott Walker, it feels as though I'm doing something wrong if there's a significant Walker topic that non-Wisconsinites are blogging and I haven't even acknowledged its existence.

So here I am at 4:48 in the morning, driven by a weird sense of obligation to pay attention to that foolish Gail Collins column The New York Times published on Friday the 13th: "Scott Walker Needs an Eraser."

You'd think columnists who want to wield influence would be more careful about letting their murderous intentions glare. But Collins stupidly overreached, perhaps fed by the Wisconsin Walker-haters who've been chewing over a set of stock topics for years and now pass along the gooey pulp of their contempt.

Collins built her column on the story of a young teacher who won an award for excellence but then got fired due to budget cuts. Walker's name is associated with budget austerity, so Walker must be to blame for her job loss. This was a gross error, the teacher having lost her job the year before Walker became governor. It took 2 days for the Times to edit out the mistaken assertion (which left the column not making much sense). Walker's reforms were aimed at saving money at the school-district level and making it possible to keep excellent new teachers.

Yesterday, Politico latched onto the screwup with a piece that begins with a sentence that seemed to write itself: "In hindsight, perhaps the headline 'Scott Walker Needs An Eraser' wasn’t the best idea." I was settling in to read an article with some substance, but it's just a little pile of fluff:

Whoops.

Conservative news sites had a field day with the error over the weekend, with The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack calling out the (since deleted and corrected, but archived) mistaken section in question.

The New York Times gets caught in a bad factual error and one of its main columnists — did you know Collins is a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board? — exposes herself as a Walker-hater, and Politico casts the incident as an occasion for conservatives to have "a field day." Like it's all just a big militarized operation, and one side got an occasion for a grand, showy triumphing.

Oh, how I loathe all the politicos out there — those who are labeled "Politico" and, worse, those who are labeled "New York Times." But I'm sticking with this little enterprise of mine. It's 5:44 a.m. now, and I'm as dedicated as ever to monitoring these politicos, even though in my heart, I'm an artist. My real inclination — as I've been toiling over this post in the pre-dawn — has been to go off on a tangent about the meaning of the term "field day" (originally, a day when military troops are assembled for some sort of review or exercise) or to go into a reverie about erasers I have known and loved, like the rubbery pink Pink Pet (not to be confused with the upstart Pink Pearl) and the mystifyingly fragrant Art Gum, which, when I was a schoolgirl, I used to like to rub into an inch-deep pile of dust which I'd invite my classmates to palpate.

Everyone who touched my little evanescent creation was delighted.

Why am I avoiding ShoveGate?

There's this story acting like it's a big deal, and I've been avoiding it. Why? Because after watching the video twice, I can't tell what really happened. Witness accounts vary. Apparently, there was a bustle in a tight space, with the reporter — John McCormack — trying to get at the candidate — Marsha Coakley — and the Democratic staffer — Michael Meehan — doing something — maybe just trying to protect her and create space around her, maybe deliberately shoving McCormack, or maybe something in between. So, I guess I'm not avoiding it anymore. I just want to say I think it's a distraction. (And I hate the tendency to call things a distraction!) I don't think it has any value in helping Massachusetts voters decide whether to vote for Coakley.

ADDED: I'm getting comments and email about Meehan's "apology." Shouldn't that change my view? Absolutely not! I can read:

Last evening I was a little too aggressive in trying to help the Attorney General get to her car and catch a flight.

I clearly did not intend to cause John McCormack to trip and fall over that low fence.  As the video shows and he confirms in his blog, I stopped to help him up and make sure he was OK.

I talked with Mr. McCormack this afternoon and apologized for my part.

He does not admit to shoving McCormack here. He apologized the way we all apologize when we bump into somebody.  Saying you're sorry they got shoved is no admission that you hurt them on purpose. There's nothing in Meehan's statement that is inconsistent with the original post.

MORE: An emailer writes:

But the word was not "careless", it was not "clumsy", it was "aggressive".

Even the rest of the disclaimer supports my interpretation. He does not deny shoving, or intending to shove. He only denies intending to cause a fall:

"I clearly did not intend to cause John McCormack to trip and fall over that low fence."

So, we have video which you find inconclusive but which seems at least to indicate contact. We have the reporter saying the contact was a shove. We have the Coakley campaign first saying the fall was a stunt -- not that it was an accident. And then we have have the man accused of shoving saying he was "too aggressive" and carefully not denying it was a shove.

ADDED: This video does, in fact, make Meehan (and Coakley) look very bad.