Can't We Call It Something Without A "Gate" In The Name?

From dictionary.com

civil service n. Abbr. CS
Those branches of public service that are not legislative, judicial, or military and in which employment is usually based on competitive examination.
The entire body of persons employed by the civil branches of a government.

patronage n.
5. The power to distribute or appoint people to governmental or political positions.
The act of distributing or appointing people to such positions.
The positions so distributed or filled.

Georgia Thompson, so far as we know now, is a civil servant, hired during a former administration without regard to her political leanings. I'm willing to wait to see how this plays out but looking at the indictment I see a lot of nothing there.

Ben at Badger Blues recites my mantra; "A good rule of thumb is never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence." My lovely wife calls that "assuming positive intent."

There has been a lot of wild speculation while Doyle's competition for the governor's office weighed in. Scott Walker spouted "rotten from the head" boilerplate and vowed to "clean up Madison." Mark Green offers something he calls an aggressivee reform agenda" that doesn't go as far as the bipartisan reforms offered by Doyle two weeks ago. The Doyle statement was terse and to the point; zero tolerance, confidence in the procedures, respect for prosecutors, yada, yada.

So far, there's not much here. A civil servant may or may not have cooked the books in a way that gave the job to the low bidder. No wonder Scott Walker is confused.