Justice David Prosser’s very public meltdown has made the jurist an embarrassment, even for his supporters.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which backed Scott Walker for governor and has backed Prosser for re-election to the high court, now admits that “Prosser has done just about everything he could think of this spring to sabotage his own campaign for re-election to the state Supreme Court.”

The newspaper observes: “From calling the chief justice a ‘bitch’ during the run-up to the campaign, to issuing a news release indicating he would complement the new Republican governor, to trying to appeal in a ham-handed way to Milwaukee County voters by citing his rulings, Prosser — and not JoAnne Kloppenburg, the assistant state attorney general who is his opponent — looks like the rookie here.”

The Journal Sentinel goes even further, writing that Prosser “apparently could use some anger-management classes. His outburst at Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson — threatening ‘to destroy’ her — will be unforgivable for some voters. He deserved the public flogging he received for it; other justices claimed it wasn’t his first tirade. He should have shown more leadership in turning the court away from its embarrassing squabbling.”