"Is Milwaukee County DA interested in pursuing criminal libel prosecutions of his political critics?"

Asks Eugene Volokh, noting that John Chisholm made a bit of a veiled threat toward Governor Scott Walker: "As to defamatory remarks, I strongly suspect the Iowa criminal code, like Wisconsin�s, has provisions for intentionally making false statements intended to harm the reputation of others." That came in response to Walker's saying that the John Doe investigation "was really about people trying to intimidate people," "They were looking for just about anything," and "it was largely a political witch hunt."

Volokh says that Iowa, in fact, does not have a criminal libel law, but Wisconsin does. Is Chisholm serious?

Is DA Chisholm is trying to signal that he may begin using Wisconsin�s own criminal libel law against political figures � or commentators or journalists � who he claims are lying about him (or other political figures)?

Volokh finds "the use of criminal libel law in political disputes... troubling." I'll say. I mean, that was Walker's point � government using its power to intimidate political opponents � and Chisholm's instinct was to threaten to use government power to intimidate political opponents. Of course, that's a despicable chilling of free speech. In fact, it's chilly enough around here that, on proofread, I wondered whether I ought to be writing "threat" and "threaten."