EDITOR’S NOTE: To mark the inauspicious occasion of Wisconsin governor/Koch Brothers puppet Scott Walker declaring his candidacy yesterday, we dipped into our archives to bring the encore edition of our 2011 interview with then-Buffalo Beast editor Ian Murphy, the man who successfully punk’d Walker by calling up his office and pretending to be Tea Party sugar daddy David Koch. The complete audio recording is posted below. This Q&A first posted on March 31st, 2011.

BY JONATHAN VALANIA When Buffalo Beast editor Ian Murphy called up the governor of Wisconsin late last month pretending to be David Koch — AKA one half of the infamous Koch Brothers — he not only humiliated a sitting governor and revealed him to be nothing more than a stooge for the corporate oligarchy, he also put a chink of transparency in the armor of a rapacious billionaire who has heretofore proven untouchable. Sure, it was juvenile, irresponsible and barely legal but I would argue that it was also the greatest feat of gonzo journalism since Hunter S. Thompson published Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail. George McGovern’s campaign manager famously said that Thompson’s book was “the least accurate and yet most truthful account of the campaign.” Arguably, Ian Murphy’s prank phone call was the least accurate but most truthful piece of reportage (yes reportage, it was fly on-the-wall immersion journalism taken to it’s logical extreme) on The Battle Of Wisconsin because it pulled back the curtain to reveal, in a way that everyone could easily grasp, the depressing reality that corporate puppetmasters now control the strings of politicians. Let’s face it, most Americans didn’t read Jane Mayer’s exhaustive and indispensable Koch Brothers expose in the New Yorker,  but in the wake of the blanket news coverage Murphy’s prank phone call garnered just about everyone understands the gist of her piece: elected officials serve at the pleasure of the corporate overlords that funded their ascendance to public office. And is not making the scales fall from the eyes of the general public — wherein they once were blind but now can see, to paraphrase an old hymn — the ultimate act of journalism? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. With this in mind, we got Murphy on the horn to discuss all the above as well as his plans to run for Congress as the Green Party candidate.

PHAWKER: What were you hoping to accomplish when you called up Gov. Walker posing as David Koch?

IAN MURPHY: To prove one simple point: That at a time when Walker couldn’t be bothered to talk to the voters of Wisconsin, or even the Democratic Senators in exile, he had plenty of time to talk about crushing unions with an archconservative billionaire donor.

PHAWKER: Looking back, what do you think you accomplished? What do you make of how the situation in Wisconsin played out?

IAN MURPHY: I’d normally be too bashful to say this, but after spending a week in Madison, I’d say I changed the narrative. Before the call, everyone—most bought into the false premise that Wisconsin was broke and poor Scott Walker was only doing what he could to make things right. After the call, people realized that Walker was carrying out, as he saw it, the first attack on working families and unions in a nationwide assault—one partially engineered by the Kochs. A lot of people never heard of the Kochs. They know them now. And they see this attack on the middle class sweeping the nation.

The situation in Wisconsin isn’t over. They crammed that anti-collective bargaining legislation through, and it’s since been temporarily stayed by a judge. It’s not over. Many of the State Senate Republicans face serious recall efforts, and once he’s been in office for a full year, as is the law, Walker himself will face a recall. And after the week I spent in Wisconsin, I have to say, he should be worried. He lied about what he’d do as Governor, he overreached on ideological grounds, and the good people of Wisconsin are going to fire his dumb ass. It’s not over.

PHAWKER: What was the fallout/blowback? Death threats, job offers, free drugs? Have you heard from the Koch people? Is there any legal action pending?

IAN MURPHY: No, no, nothing but shwag. Nothing from the Kochs. The last thing they’d want to do is draw attention to this again while litigating a case that they have absolutely no chance of winning.

PHAWKER: How do you respond to people saying you are the liberal equivalent of James O’Keefe? Do you see yourself as a counterweight to O’Keefe striking a blow for the good guys?

IAN MURPHY: I respond by fighting back the urge to punch things. You can make comparisons about the way we obtain information, but it ends there. He edits raw data to fit his conservative narrative, regardless of the truth, and I’d never do that. If you mean I’m a truthful counterbalance to his lies, then I have no problem with that.

PHAWKER: Can we expect more hijinks like this from you?

IAN MURPHY: Perhaps. It’s really not wise to say, especially now…

Please standby for a Q&A with Ian Murphy, editor of Buffalo’s The Beast, AKA the man who called Wisconsin governor Scott Walker pretending to be David Koch, one half of the infamous Koch Brothers.  Coming soon to a Phawker near you!

PREVIOUSLY: KOCH SUCKER: Wisconsin Governor Punked By Alt-Weekly Editor Pretending To Be Koch Brother

RELATED: The newly elected governor of Maine, Paul LePage, is outspoken. He said that after his election readers could expect to see in their newspapers, “LePage tells Obama to go to hell.” When he refused to attend a Martin Luther King Day event, he said of the NAACP, “Tell them they can kiss my butt.” Not to be outdone by other Republican governors who are attacking unions, over the weekend he ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural celebrating labor from the lobby of the state Labor Department building in Augusta, and is retitling its conference rooms to remove the names of past labor leaders. His reason? They might make businessmen uncomfortable. How many such businessmen visit the Labor Department? And how many faint with panic at the sight of a mural that depicts historical scenes from Maine’s labor movement, like women building ships during World War II, and a 1986 paper strike? MORE

This is the mural the Republican governor of Maine ordered removed from the walls of the Maine Department of Labor because it might offend the oligarchs business community.

WAUSAU DAILY HERALD: The Wisconsin Senate succeeded in voting Wednesday to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers, after Republicans discovered a way to bypass the chamber’s missing Democrats and approve an explosive proposal that has rocked the state and unions nationwide. “You are cowards!” spectators in the Senate gallery screamed as lawmakers voted. Within hours, a crowd of a few hundred protesters inside the Capitol had grown to several thousand, more than had been in the building at any point during weeks of protests. “The whole world is watching!” they shouted as they pressed up against the heavily guarded entrance to the Senate chamber. The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measures that spends money. But Republicans on Wednesday took all the spending measures out of the legislation and a special committee of lawmakers from both the Senate and Assembly approved the revised bill a short time later. “In 30 minutes, 18 state senators undid 50 years of civil rights in Wisconsin. Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten,” said Democratic Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller. “Tonight, 18 Senate Republicans conspired to take government away from the people.” MORE

PREVIOUSLY: In a PPP poll released Monday, a majority of registered Wisconsin voters say that in a hypothetical re-do of last year’s gubernatorial election, they would vote for Democrat Tom Barrett, whom Walker defeated in November. That finding comes as Walker continues to stand firm on his budget proposals that would strip most state public employees of long-held collective bargaining rights. MORE

PREVIOUSLY: New CBS/NY TIMES Poll Reveals That The Majority Of Americans Oppose Stripping Collective Bargaining For Public Employees

PREVIOUSLY: New Wall Street Journal Poll Also Shows Majority Of Americans Oppose Stripping Collective Bargaining Rights For Public Employees