This article originally appeared in the May 2011 issue of Milwaukee Magazine. 

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Whispered conspiracy theories nipped at the heels of January’s surprise announcement that Journal Sentinel editorial page editor O. Ricardo Pimentel was stepping down to write a column. “There is a story here and the bodies are still warm,” a confident reader assured Pressroom.

Was he ditched for being too liberal? Pimentel’s prior work as an Arizona Republic columnist and his Quick Hits at the JS suggested a harder edge than the sometimes mushy centrism of the paper’s editorial page. His new column’s left hooks at Gov. Scott Walker – whom the paper endorsed last fall – cemented the image.

“Who is the real Scott Walker?” Pimentel asked after the governor’s phone conversation with a blogger posing as a wealthy campaign contributor. “The one who bills himself as an eminently reasonable populist? Or the one who smirks privately with his monied enablers? Both Walkers owe Wisconsin an apology.”

But Pimentel tells Pressroom he wasn’t pushed. “I just wanted to do something different,” he says. “I wanted to write a column again. I wanted to write with my voice. I missed it a whole lot.”

Still, the timing was odd. The column and Pi ...  more