On Friday, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak appeared on the Fox Business Network and said that if Gov. Tim Pawlenty runs for president “he’s going to get his butt kicked by Barack Obama.”

Today, Pawlenty was on the same Fox Business Network show with host Alexis Glick and had a chance to respond to Rybak’s jab he said:

“As to the mayor, since it is early in the week, we want to be Minnesota nice.  I think he was trash-talking there a little bit, and we will let it go at that.”

Not exactly fighting words. If this is the best inflamed rhetoric we can muster, the national audience is going to think we really are nice.