If there’s a Minnesota politics “expert” whose shelf-life is more expired than Larry Jacobs, the U of M PoliSci prof who is cited in virtually every story about politics (or so it seems) in the Minnesota mainstream media, it’s gotta be Wy Spano.  Spano turns up everywhere, on every panel (or, again, so it seems), doing for panel discussions what Lori Sturdevant does for the Columns page; gurgitating DFL talking points.

Which would be one thing if he weren’t an intellectual thug…

…well, let’s let Margaret take over the story over at Anti-Strib:

David did the political panel on Almanac this past Friday. If you didn’t see it, the panel had most of the usual suspects: Ember Reichgott-Junge, Fritz Knaacht, Wy Spano and David. The panel quickly devolved into Wy vs. David, with Wy trying to make the argument that the bridge collapsed because maintenance was underfunded and the Taxpayers League (David and his rich friends) had ruined the state. Wy spouted that the no longer were Minnesotans going to believe the Taxpayers League and that basically the bridge collapse showed that the battle was over and conservative arguments had lost. The on-camera debate continued largely civilly although Wy continued to butt in and talk over David, but that’s his style so nothing really new there. What the viewers didn’t really see what the shouting match that developed after the segment was over. Interestingly, neither the producers, nor Erik Eskola told them to shut up, except for an initial “quiet on the set” when Cathy Wurzer began the index file question segment. There was shouting and hand waving so loud that I, sitting on the bleachers couldn’t hear the question (a weekly bit of Minnesota trivia for those of you who never watch the show). Cathy was clearly distracted and you can see an occasional silhouette moving around behind the strategically placed vase full of sunflowers.

I will have to summarize the “discussion” that took place after the cameras stopped rolling because there was a lot of noise. David pointed out that the Stillwater Bridge is in worse shape than the I-35W bridge was and Wy started shouting that David was a “liar” and a “know nothing” and that the “know nothings had been winning” but now “they” were going to take back the state.” It was quite the scene, reminiscent of Nikita’s Kruschev’s “we will bury you” speech. Or the Wellstone memorial.

They apparently think everyone will be deaf before the engineers finally come out and say the bridge collapsed due to things that wouldn’t have been affected by any more spending. 

It may be their only hope, in fact.

UPDATE:  In my haste, I missed the link the first time. 

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 4:55 am and is filed under Bridge Collapse, Minnesota Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.