Across the Great Divide

Pawlenty Leaves a Gut-Shot Minnesota.

In the Strib story about the deer hunting opener, DJ Danielson sees parallels between Gov. Pawlenty's performance as governor and his hunting ethic.

After wounding a small buck

Pawlenty had to leave for Iowa, where he was headlining a Republican Party fundraiser.

Before leaving, he told reporters, "they're looking for it and they're hopeful they can find it," according to news reports.

Yes, "they" are following the blood trail through the brush, while he runs to catch his flight, and we are hopeful we can salvage something from the carnage.

Pawlenty's Stock: Headed Underwater.

Politics is the only profession where it's considered okay to badmouth the competition. And if you're out looking for another job, you don't tell your boss you have a dentist appointment — you go on television.

Silly me. I used to think being a governor was an executive job.

If I was still running a company and it was having trouble, I'd find a way to get to the office each day and spend time with my management team. When I went out, it would be to talk to my customers and buck up the people doing the work under tough circumstances.  

Even if I was planning to jump ship, I certainly wouldn't be spending all my time talking about what a crappy job my colleagues had done, and then take credit for their accomplishments that I'd tried to stop. As Gov. Pawlenty has noted, after all, there's Google.

But our Gov. Pawlenty has been going the other way — slamming the cities he's shafted, taking credit for good stuff he opposed and canceling funding that doesn't exist. If state government were a private, a hostile takeover would be under way by now. Sell advisories would be issued. 

But recall is for Californians.

Pawlenty's greatest accomplishments over the past three months have been to make ex-Gov. Palin look like she has integrity for resigning and make Rep. Michele Bachmann look like a normal Minnesota Republican.

*****

Norwegianity reads about efforts to block middle- and lower-income people who might receive federal insurance subsidies from using the money on health care plans that cover abortion and has this to say:

This is not about abortion, it’s about control freaks legislating their religious twaddle. Next will be AIDS exclusion (unholy lifestyle, etc.), then STD exclusion in general. Then they’ll go after the obese. It’s almost funny to see how the right uses that one both ways: Obama will force you to be healthy (nanny state) vs. Why should I have to pay higher rates because some people choose to be fat (laissez fuck-u-ism).

Anything to slow down the eventual bill because the entire Republican party has become little more than the Gotta Obstruct Party.

It’s like Middle Eastern terrorism. First you set off a small bomb, then you set off the bigger bomb when the ambulances arrive. Republicans break everything, then snipe at the repair crews.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do.

At the Michigan state Republican leadership conference on Mackinac Island Saturday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said people living in traditional Democratic strongholds such as Detroit often hold the cliched view that the GOP is a party of elitists.

Um, no. They just hold the cliched view that Republicans don't care about black people.

But never mind that. Pawlenty thinks the GOP needs to reach out to inner city voters — sort of like he has in Minnesota.

Our Absentee Governor at Work.

Gov. Pawlenty, who has hardly been able to drag himself to Minnesota, let alone to his desk, unleashed a flurry of productivity yesterday, telling Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson:

By this letter, I am directing you to stop all state funding to ACORN unless the state is legally obligated to provide such funding.

As Polinaut reports, however, ACORN and its affiliated organizations receive no funding from the state of Minnesota.

Look for future directives to stop all state funding to Cuba, the Dallas Cowboy's new stadium, Body Worlds, the Rolling Thirties Bloods, French health care, the Teamsters and Margaret Anderson Kelliher's gubernatorial campaign committee.

The Speech They Don't Want Their Kids to Hear Tomorrow.

“The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child,” said Brett Curtis, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.

“I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”

– "Some Parents Oppose Obama School Speech," New York Times

Here's an excerpt from that hideously manipulative presidential speech:

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. 

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox. 

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. 

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. 

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Pawlenty Needs Some Bachmann Lessons.

On the radio, Pawlenty said he understood the address would encourage school children to write to the president. 

"There are going to be questions about -- well, what are they are going to do with those names and is that for the purpose of a mailing list?" the governor said. 

— Star Tribune

Our absentee Governor really missed an opportunity on this one. If he wants to become a national right wing quote machine, he has to ditch the innuendo and go straight for the craziness.

Of course President Obama doesn't want a mailing list of nine-year-olds. He wants to send agents to the homes to recruit them to spy on their parents!

What Obama May See in Grand Junction.

Pres. Obama's western swing this weekend was announced as a tour to encourage people to visit America’s national parks. He'll be landing in four places that qualify, including Grand Junction, where Colorado National Monument unfolds outside my front door. Unfortunately, I'll miss the opportunity to watch a presidential convoy buzz by.

Then, again, his visit to Colorado will actually focus more on health care, and he many only take in Monument views from Air Force One. It happens that all the states he's visiting are represented by key committee members and health care fence sitters.

Aug. 14th, Obama and family will be in Bozeman, Mont., home of Finance Committee Chair and Friend of Pharma Sen. Max Baucus. Obama visits Yellowstone, Aug. 15. Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming is the leading GOP member of the Senate Health Committee and is one of the negotiators reconciling the health care bills. 

The Obamas will spend the night in Grand Junction, and then head to Phoenix, where he'll address the convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and visit the Grand Canyon Aug. 16. Arizona is home to two more Blue Dogs, Reps. Gabrielle Giffords (whose Town Hall Meeting in my Grandpappy's town of Douglas included a dropped firearm) and Harry Mitchell.

Grand Junction is in the Congressional district of Blue Dog Democrat Rep. John Salazar, who has not yet come out squarely in favor of a public health care plan option. The linked story says an email from BarackObama.com urges supporters to contact Salazar’s Grand Junction office: “Let the person who answers know that you’re a constituent. Then tell them: ‘Thanks for working to enact real health insurance reform this year. Voters like me support your efforts.’ ”

Grand Junction is highly rated by the Dartmouth Medical Atlas for its relatively low medical care costs. If you drill down into the reasons why locals get quality care for less, the answer boils down to socialism — the good kind — but no one would dare call it that.

The Rocky Mountain West is fairly conservative territory, and Grand Junction is far from a Democratic stronghold (the vote here was nearly 2-1 for McCain-Palin). The local protesters of the president's visit are sponsoring a "Hands off Health Care Rally" before he arrives, and are announcing, but not "sponsoring," the protest at the site of the Town Hall meeting.

The first rally is at Lincoln Park, next to the VA Hospital, where the government already has its hands on health care. 

The organizers provide some helpful instructions for protesters who can't come up with a clever sign by Saturday: "take a plain piece of cardboard, (cut like a signboard) put it in a black plastic trash bag and tape up the loose ends and slack with duck tape on the reverse side.  Your black protest sign is symbolic of your protest against the Obama administrations' [sic] move to the dark side with their attempts to silence the voice of the American people."

"I'm a Runner."

[Photo: Brian Adams in Runners World]

The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican Party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.

— Peggy Noonan

She's Not Quitting. She's Just Transferring to Another Institution.

"Palin has a better resume than Obama had this time a year ago..."
– Mitch Berg

Right.

After all, she has gone to more schools.

Not all Palin fans are so deluded.

Ed Morrissey's entire post is worth a read.

If it’s her duty to always “protect” Alaska, then that strongly implies not walking away from the responsibility of governing it — a responsibility she sought, and with which her constituents trusted her to execute.  No one leads by quitting.  No one leads by quitting.  Palin’s abandoning  her post, and at least from her own description, doing it because she doesn’t want to deal with the issues of being a “lame duck,” a status all politicians have to handle at some point.

Palin Out. But Damned if We Know Why.

Sarah Palin has announced her resignation as Governor of Alaska. The video clip at the New York Times story either starts part way into her remarks, or Palin is even more incoherent than usual.

Near the end of her rambling but perky statement, she says, "I'm doing what's best for Alaska, and I've explained my reasons."  I wouldn't say they were explained. It's hard to know if they were even stated. As best I can tell, they're some amalgam of beating a full court press, spending more time with her family and being able to effect change more if she isn't the chief executive of her state. Without saying she wants to campaign for president full time.

It's possible she's trying to trump Pawlenty in the presidential derby by resigning from office as a sign of her conservative, anti-big-government purity. After all, that trick helped her win the governor's job the last time she pulled it.

Memo to politicians holding back yard press conferences: Make sure there are no geese in the background.

A few times during Palin's speech, it sounded like a gaggle of critics was making commentary.