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Pawlenty Touts Palin-Like Foreign Policy Experience
It's time for an amusing peek at a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.
Check out what Pawlenty said to Minnesota Public Radio, firing back at a Democratic gubernatorial candidate who criticized him for traveling to the Munich Security Conference:
And when you're the commander in chief of the Minnesota National Guard, and you're going to deploy soldiers -- like we are tomorrow night at the St. Paul civic center, a thousand soldiers going off to Iran (Editor Note: Pawlenty said Iran on the air. His spokesman said he misspoke and corrected himself on the air later) and a month from now another thousand going to the middle east to fight in the war -- it helps to have an understanding of those issues, the dynamics, the security issues.
There are two things to consider here. First, Pawlenty apparently has a Palin-style belief that a governor's official role as head of the state National Guard has some importance in foreign policy. And while explaining this concept, he managed to get wrong which country his state's troops are actually being sent to.
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Josh
Elana
Matt
Eric
Ah Pawlenty, you had me as "gosh darn it".
February 10, 2009 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also too, my State borders the evil empire of Canada!
February 10, 2009 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
shows you the mentality of the people that accept these fools and vote for them.
if this sub human intellectual speak didnt work, they wouldnt be saying it.
February 10, 2009 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
So true. We celebrate ignorance in the guise of "regular Americans" and we ridicule intelligence as elitism.
I really don't care of the US crashes and burns, I will have no problems living elsewhere.
February 10, 2009 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please list the countries with flourishing economies, progressive governments and liberal immigration policies that your are considering.
February 10, 2009 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's like saying that you are qualified for treasury secretary because you pay your taxes every year. Wait--That wasn't supposed to be a Geithner dig!
February 10, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
In defense of my fellow Minnesotans, it's worth noting that Pawlenty managed to get elected twice without ever getting a majority of the votes cast. We've been cursed by third party candidates in too many elections over the last few years.
February 10, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, umm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.
February 10, 2009 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tiny Governor Tim is pathetic. The only good thing I can possibly offer about him is that the guy he beat for the nomination in 2002 (Brian Sullivan, who founded the Pur water filter company - utter crap products, by the way, very prone to clogging and breakdown) was far, far worse. Where Timmy Tantrum is a blithering idiot, Sullivan is an outright jerk.
His "Iran" comment shows him to be ignorant. His "we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem" shows him to be divorced from reality.
Timmay!
February 10, 2009 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is it repug govs seem to think they co-op the commander-in-chief hat with the President when their Guard units are called up for active duty outside their state borders? Do they really believe they have a say in where their troops will be stationed, or the level and intensity of fighting they will perform, or the adverse living conditions they will have to endure? - not! This is all make believe, except there are voters that actually believe this load of tripe and swallow in whole without even thinking of chewing on it first.
February 10, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gov. Tim Pawlenty, nice guy, lightweight, no Sarah, just ask El Rushbo.
February 10, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
To invade Canada perhaps? Shoot some mounties? Plunder them of their donuts, back bacon and Molson?
February 10, 2009 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't they make a movie called canadian bacon with that as the theme? I think that republicans watch too much tv. They believe 24 is reality and now want to follow in the footsteps of a comedy about invading canada? Next thing you know they will be gearing up for mad max. Oh, that's right, they are already doing that.
February 10, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or is this life as South Park (Blame Canada)?
February 10, 2009 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
South park might be too high-brow and elitist for republicans.
February 10, 2009 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed - one of the funnier silly movies I've seen in recent years.
February 10, 2009 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the Labatt's, rather than Molson.
Although if we're talking about liberating a healthy quantity of Boreal, I may re-consider signing up.
February 10, 2009 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Could he really be this clueless? (Rhetorical question.)
Once a mullet head, always a mullet head. That's palenty enough for me.
February 10, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Embarrassing. He is nothing but an embarrassment for the state.
February 10, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Total non-story.
Pawlenty is a good governor though a little too anti-government. Pawlenty cares about people, cares more about soldiers and how these long deployments affect their families more than any other governor in the country. Pawlenty has nothing to do with Palin. This was just a slip of the tongue, though maybe he started to lose his cool, I don't know, I didn't hear it. I will assure you though that the DFLers in the state legislature are a bunch of clueless morons and for many of them, I am embarrassed to have them on my side.
February 10, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nonsense.
Pawlenty is a terrible governor. He always has been, and he always will be.
For those of you who do not know, Pawlenty ran for governor under the pledge to never raise taxes. As such, the state is in a complete mess. Pawlenty keeps raising "fees" on our people, and leaves it up to city governments to increase property taxes, while he takes none of the blame.
His current governorship is nothing more than a preamble to his run for President in 2012. Because of this, he is leaving Minnesota behind in order to campaign on the basis of him governing a state for 8 years without ever raising taxes. I'm sure that will get give a hard-on to a lot of Republican supporters out there.
February 10, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pawlenty could have been a good governor if not for his slavish devotion to his no new taxes pledge. Keeping that campaign promise has value to him as a candidate for President, but has cost the state dearly. He's put his political future before the good of the state, passed the buck to cities, counties, school districts, colleges, universities, and the future in order to avoid new taxes, raised regressive fees to avoid taxes, and raided every fund he could find to avoid dealing honestly with a structurally imbalanced budget - all to the detriment of the state but in service to a single campaign pledge. He may be a nice guy, but to me that makes him a terrible governor.
February 10, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not a non-story if you care at all about Pawlenty or his future prospects, or if you're a Minnesota taxpayer footing the bill for his campaign stops in Munich. Yes, the Iran/Iraq switchup was just a slip of the tongue, but that's not the important part. There are two things that really matter here:
1)Pawlenty went off to Germany on the Minnesota taxpayer's dime for a conference that had nothing to do with him or his current job, where he had absolutely no experience or other value to add to the discussion. In other words, he ostensibly went as Minnesota's governor, while in reality he was attending as a presidential candidate.
2)When attacked for this, Pawlenty resorted to the exact same ridiculous fiction employed by Sarah Palin: that governors have some actual authority and/or responsibility in conjunction with their status as "commanders in chief" of their state national guard units. They don't. The difference between Pawlenty and Palin's statements (aside from Pawlenty's ability to form actual sentences) was really only in what they were responding to; Palin was grasping for anything at all to call foreign policy experience, while Pawlenty was trying to justify his trips abroad to get some of that experience when it's not required for his current job.
In any case, what it really amounts to is that Minnesotans should be very disappointed that Pawlenty is already running for president instead of running their state...just like Alaskans should still be mad at Palin, who still hasn't gone back to work.
February 10, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Governors all travel, so what.
Pawlenty and other old-school centrist Republicans are islands-unto-themselves right now.
The national party is a farce, while the DFL-dominated Minnesota state legislature which Pawlenty is required to work with is busy formulating laws such as "no smoking in your automobile."
No wonder there's a little venom in Pawlenty's voice these days.
February 11, 2009 1:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I suggest that Pawlenty would be the perfect Republican nominee for President in 2012, with Palin for VP. Or Palin for President and Pawlenty for VP. Either way, double perfection. May the GOP be cursed with these two albatrosses for many, many years to come. I'm really getting to like them.
February 10, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Foreign policy experience doesn't matter anymore, remember? All he has to do is write 2 books about himself before 2012 and he'll be as ready as the last guy...
February 10, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or how about the guy before who couldn't even read a book more than ten pages long, let alone write one. He had a boatload of foreign policy experience and got us into two intractible wars. Awesome.
February 10, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll give Pawlenty only limited credit for an ability to form sentences because his grammar is all fudge when he puts these two clauses in the same sentence: 'when you [Pawlenty] are commander in chief of the Minnesota National Guard' and 'when you [not-Pawlenty] are going to deploy soldiers' to Iran/Iraq or wherever. Mr. State Guard Commander Guy has NO authority over National Guard troops deployed by the federal government. His only legitimate interest in their deployment is ask when will they be back and whether the state guard will be adequate in their absence. He surely did not need to travel to Munich to get answers to those questions.
February 10, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can see Canada from the top of the IDS Building (downtown Minneapolis).
Cue 'Blame Canada' from South Park, Bigger, Longer, Uncut.
February 10, 2009 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Foreign policy experience doesn't matter anymore, remember? All he has to do is write 2 books about himself before 2012 and he'll be as ready as the last guy...
Posted by SFCWallace
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George Bush wrote two books?
February 10, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt Bush has read two books.
February 10, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink