IMO, people are making way too much out of Bedford's comments.
If you read the transcript from his presentation, he made the comments about Milwaukee when discussing price stimulation and traffic growth. Bedford indicated that price stimulation works on some of the leisure routes, such as Florida, but doesn't draw many more passengers to the business markets and therefore Republic feels it can maintain a revenue premium because there is no need to dramatically slash fares. He indicated that this makes sense to most people except perhaps AirTran (given how light the loads have been on many of the traditional business routes AirTran serves in MKE, Bedford seems to be correct). Milwaukee is very much an origin market for travelers. People come to Milwaukee mainly for business or to visit family/friends. How many people wake up everyday and say, "I want to visit Milwaukee?" Not many.
Could Bedord have worded his comments better? Probably. But if you look at his comments in the context they were presented, what he said was 100% correct.