As Minnesota Independent’s Chris Steller noted over the weekend, a Star Tribune editorial devoted 666 words to criticizing those who politicized President Obama’s schoolkids speech, and not one of those words was “Pawlenty.”
No such problem for New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, who knows how to pin the tail on the elephant. The column — entitled “Loons should shut up and listen” — is the sort of national press our peripatetic proto-presidential candidate might not appreciate:
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty who thinks he is going to be President someday even as he makes Sarah Palin sound like a Fulbright scholar in comparison, called the Obama speech “disruptive.”
“I don’t think [the President] needs to force [his speech on education] upon the nation’s schoolchildren,” Pawlenty said.
If Pawlenty thinks that, here’s all he really knows about the nation’s schoolchildren: He didn’t hit the books nearly hard enough when he was one.
Pawlenty has thrown in with all those who have decided they have to hate this President on everything, already making his election seem like some kind of accident. …
Maybe the ones who fear Obama the most, the ones who hate him the most, should try doing what a lot of schoolchildren will do tomorrow, as this President tries to inspire them:
As a change of pace, maybe they should stop shouting and listen.
OK, Lupica’s words aren’t exactly temperate, but he didn’t throw the first punch. Sometimes it’s easier to be blunt from a thousand miles away, but that’s pretty sad for locals seeking accountability for the state’s leader.
By the way, the text of Obama’s Tuesday speech is posted here.
And on top of it from the Strib the sunday piece about Pawlenty ! Why do I bother to even look at the rag. But I still like to read while I’m eating diner.Maybe I should watch my heath.
“stop shouting and listen”
wise
Try reading the speech backwards. I think that’s how the socialist influences are imprinted into the minds of the young.
To be fair to Governor Pawlenty, he has to serve the masters of the right wing base and activists prior to moving to the middle ground during the general election.
Pawlenty “needs” to make headlines to call attention to his brand an increase his name recognition. Pawlenty is simply ringing the bell for the activists in the GOP with the “required’ demagogic and partisan rhetoric. If he is fortunate enough to move along in the process he will move to the center during the general.
Mr. Lupica is a very smart man…..
Pawlenty may “move to the center” during his presidential campaign, but if elected (God spare us), he will govern from the anti-tax, anti-worker, anti-poor-people, anti-government philosophy he has inflicted upon Minnesota for eight long years.
I feel no need to be fair to Tim Pawlenty. The whole country knows education is a top priority, but he’s been pillaging education funds for years, deriding teachers, cramming his own demagogic pedagogy down our throats. Remember Cheri Yecke? Long before he became governor he demonstrated his card-carrying fealty to the Republican rightwing. He has NEVER been a centrist.
I am ashamed of our governor.
It seems that Pawlenty decided not to run for governor again so he could find time to try to do as much damage to the nation as he has done to the people and institutions of Minnesota. His recent trips around the country to attack anything progressive allows him to be away while the rest of us try to stave off the damage he has caused to our educational system, our health care programs and care for the less fortunate. Now we have to bear the brunt of a nation seeing him for what he is and wondering how we the voters in Minnesota could have been so stupid as to allow him the position. He makes us seem even more stupid for having done so after we had just gotten over our position as the nation’s laughingstock for electing the Wrestler.