The Strib Editorial Board and the other varieties of intellectual roadkill that make up Minnesota’s left-wing pundocracy are all firmly agreed; “Tim Pawlenty’s eight years were a disaster”.
And if that crowd believes it, you know it’s untrue.
Brian McClung, mirabile dictu, got an op-ed in the Strib to set the record straight, and so he does:
On the final Sunday of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s eight years in office, the Star Tribune Editorial Board dropped a burning pile on the doorstep of the Governor’s Mansion, rang the bell and ran off without looking at Pawlenty’s complete record. Let’s step back and take a different look.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary declared “austerity” the top word of 2010. While austerity isn’t sexy — and may not garner as much cocktail party praise as issues Strib editorial writers prefer — Minnesota state government needed it badly. What Gov. Pawlenty did over the past eight years was a near-miracle. During the four decades before he took office, Minnesota government spending had grown by an average of more than 20 percent every two years; on his watch it was less than 2 percent.
Read the whole thing. Use it to gargle and spit out the aftertaste of the leftymedia’s bilge-y meme.
This is why I haven’t needed the STrib since the dog was house trained. It’s also too stiff for toilet paper, which is it’s only other practical use.
So that’s what all those paper mache big-headed monsters at all the libeRat rallies are made from!
Scary to think of state spending growing at a rate of 9-10% annually for four decades–even knowing that a big chunk of that went into local government aid and such.
Also a great fire-starter, which is what you’d expect from the journal of record for satan’s minions…just saying…
Did you all see the awesome wisdom that is EJ Dionne today?
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/112831414.html
But on reflection, I offer the Republicans two cheers for their fealty to their professed ideals.
We badly need a full-scale debate over what the Constitution is, means and allows — and how Americans have argued about these questions since the beginning of the republic.
This provision should be the springboard for a discussion all of us should join.
From its inception, the Tea Party movement has treated the nation’s great founding document not as the collection of shrewd political compromises that it is, but as the equivalent of sacred scripture.
Yet as Gordon Wood, the widely admired historian of the Revolutionary era has noted, we “can recognize the extraordinary character of the Founding Fathers while also knowing that those 18th-century political leaders were not outside history. … They were as enmeshed in historical circumstances as we are, they had no special divine insight into politics, and their thinking was certainly not free of passion, ignorance, and foolishness.”
An examination of the Constitution that views it as something other than the books of Genesis or Leviticus would be good for the country.
Translation: “When are you stoopid baggers going to learn that the US Constitution was doodling on a wet cocktail napkin by a bunch of drunk white men?”
They were as enmeshed in historical circumstances as we are, they had no special divine insight into politics, and their thinking was certainly not free of passion, ignorance, and foolishness.
Sounds like the modern Democrat party to me.
Kermit;
I disagree. The Red Star is also an effective bird cage liner and as a wrapper for fish guts! Sheeesh!
Another thing the Strib and most papers are notorious for: Not fact checking the op/eds they publish. I’m not interested in vetting all of McClung’s spin, but one claim jumped out at me:”Minnesota’s manufactured exports rose 39 percent since he took office.”
Meaningless. Overall US manufacturing exports climbed about 44% during that period.
The sun came up every day during his tenure, too, whether he was in the state or not.
ll US manufacturing exports climbed about 44% during that period.
Itself meaningless; we dont’ know the baseline from which the rest of the country jumped. It’s just as lkely that Minnesota’s rose less because it was healthier to begin with.
Again, thanks to Pawlenty.
The sun came up every day during his tenure
Not according to Dave Mindeman.
Mitch, I checked data. You just huffed. McClung put that out there because it sounded good. In fact, we rode the tide.
We can expect much less sunshine over the next four years. The local media will be doing overtime covering for that sorry excuse for a governor we have now.
Sheesh, Kerm. I’m willing to give your homies a few days in the job before I declare how badly they’ve done it.
Sorry Charlie. Brave Sir Mark has already accrued quite a record. The man gave himself a well-deserved “F”, after all.