It turned out that Evers was speaking from a place of knowledge about the nuanced process of trying to encourage job creation while protecting taxpayers, workers and the environment.

As for Vos and Fitzgerald, well, the Collins English Dictionary refers to a circumstance in which individuals are “beclowned” by making fools of themselves.

When the Assembly speaker and the Senate majority leader failed to provide adequate oversight for the Foxconn deal in 2017, they embarrassed themselves. But with their blank-stare defenses of the flawed arrangement, they have compounded that embarrassment, playing the fools again and again.

Vos and Fitzgerald are now fully beclowned.

At this point, the two Republican leaders need to get out of the way and let an adult take the lead. There is still a chance that Evers can, with serious-minded negotiation and an awareness of the realities of a rapidly evolving technological landscape, reach a reasonable arrangement with Foxconn.

But Vos and Fitzgerald need to stand down because, if these clowns screw things up again, the joke is going to be on the taxpayers of Wisconsin. And it will not be funny.

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