What's The First Step?

Yeah, yeah. I know. JB van Hollen shot his mouth off a lot during his campaign. He said he'd have the DNA backlog at the State Crime Lab clear in three weeks. Now, he's a month into his term and all he can do is parrot GWB. "It's hard work. Gonna take time. Stay the course. Need more funding."

Been there. Heard that.

It's also been a month since AG Goodhair took office and we've not seen a single initiative to root out those terrorist cells training in Wisconsin. Van Hollen said he knew where they were because he had special double-secret information from the Feds. Now, it's not so imprtant to him.

But don't misunderestimate JBvH. He knows what to do as the only statewide elected official from his party. He watched John Gard bring on staff while declaring a hiring freeze for everyone else in the Assembly. JB showed us on MOnday that he knows how to reward them what does for him.

JB hired former Dane County Sherrif Gary Hamblin as administrator of the Justice Department's Division of Law Enforcement Services. Instead of hiring two of those actual technicians that everyone in the state can see is needed JB's first step is to spend $102,000 of our money to hire the man who threw Kathleen Falk under the Madison City bus.

What does Hamblin have to say about hitting the ground running and solving the backlog problem?

"I have a lot of learning to do, not only with DNA but the whole crime lab
process," he said. "The important thing is that we all work together as a team.
I don't come in here with any notions as to how to fix it."

There you have it. Without a notion. The WSJournal article continues.

Hamblin told reporters Monday that reducing the backlog will require hiring
more analysts and training officers about what evidence is most appropriate to
submit to the lab. He said he wasn't sure whether other steps are needed.

"If we can train officers to submit those things that do have important
relevance to the case, I think we can streamline the process a little bit,"
Hamblin said.

There is the crux of the biscuit. Maybe, after some training and growing and wheedling for money. Just maybe, eventually, JBvH's $102,000 solution will streamline the process a little bit. Time to start calling him JB van Hooey.