{"id":88282,"date":"2024-09-05T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=88282"},"modified":"2024-09-04T14:44:04","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T19:44:04","slug":"pounce-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=88282","title":{"rendered":"Pounce"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>SCENE:\u00a0\u00a0 Governor Walz&#8217;s command post van, parked out back of the Minnesota State Fair.\u00a0 Governor WALZ enters, dressed in his &#8220;regular Joe&#8221; costume, trailed by Lieutenant Governor FLANAGAN, sans turquoise earrings.\u00a0 Trailing after in the entourage are the Governor&#8217;s press secretary, Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, and Lt. Gov. Flanagan&#8217;s press aide Cat SCAT.\u00a0\u00a0 WALZ&#8217;s face is red, causing his eyebrows to stand out like little white flares on a dark night.\u00a0 Several other staffers, as well as FLANAGAN&#8217;s husband, former MPR political reporter and NPR&#8217;s MyLyssa SILBERMAN, reporter for National Public Radio\u2019s Saint Paul bureau, covering the \u201cFake News\u201d and \u201cDiversity\u201d beats, and Betty Rae TORSTENGAARDSEN, a writer at the (possibly fictional) progressive blog \u201cMinnesotaLiberalAlliance.Blogspot.com\u201c, and Lac Qui Parle County Dairy Princess in 1987, and voted \u201cmost likely to end up as a freelance political writer\u201d by her sorority at U of M Morris in 1992.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>WALZ:\u00a0 What <em>the hell <\/em>was that?<\/p>\n<p>FLANAGAN:\u00a0 Weren&#8217;t they tooooold of the policy?<\/p>\n<p>BIRKENSTOCK:\u00a0 It was on the handout (SCAT produces the handout); &#8220;The state fair is <em>only about food and baby animals<\/em>&#8220;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>WALZ:\u00a0\u00a0 Then <em>what the hell was this<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">REPORTER: Are you going to take any policy questions?<br><br>TIM WALZ: *walks away* <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Zhl1y0HWHs\">pic.twitter.com\/Zhl1y0HWHs<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GrageDustin\/status\/1831381568579084304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 4, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>BIRKENSTOCK:  It was all that out of town media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WALZ:\u00a0 Well, what can we <em>do <\/em>about them?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>SILBERMAN:\u00a0 What do you mean, &#8220;do&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>WALZ:\u00a0 Can we get rid of them until they know the rules?\u00a0 I mean, just <em>look <\/em>at this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It gets worse.<br><br>The reporter continues to beg Tim Walz to answer her questions and doesn\u2019t acknowledge her existence.<br><br>He dodged deployment.<br><br>He dodged debates.<br><br>Now he\u2019s dodging reporters.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aS9vTnYXpS\">pic.twitter.com\/aS9vTnYXpS<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GrageDustin\/status\/1831382854070329636?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 4, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WALZ:  I mean, what happened to the reporters who knows the <em>rules?<\/em>  Peggy, what did you do with that guy from Public Minnesota Radio?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FLANAGAN:\u00a0 Dated and married him? (<em>WEBER gushes<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>WALZ:\u00a0 Can one of you date and marry that woman?<\/p>\n<p>(<em>BIRKENSTOCK and SCAT trade nervous glances<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>BIRKENSTOCK:\u00a0 Uhhhhh&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>WALZ:\u00a0 Look &#8211; the Minnesota media knows their place.\u00a0 What&#8217;s it gonna take to get these national people to follow the rules?<\/p>\n<p>SILBERMAN:\u00a0 I probably shouldn&#8217;t be talking here, but playing games with access usually does the trick.<\/p>\n<p>BIRKENSTOCK:\u00a0 I know, we gotta get in control of that.<\/p>\n<p>TORSTENGAARDSEN:\u00a0 Or &#8211; and this may seem a little radical &#8211; you could answer policy questions from the press&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>(<em>Everyone in the room looks at TORSTENGAARDSEN as if she&#8217;s farted in church<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>WALZ:\u00a0 Get her the hell out of here.<\/p>\n<p>(<em>Security guards and Secret Service pass TORSTENGAARDSEN out of the van like it&#8217;s a mosh pit in 1992<\/em>).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>WALZ:\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 Serious discussion here.\u00a0 National media.\u00a0 What the hell?\u00a0 Think, people&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>And SCENE<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCENE:\u00a0\u00a0 Governor Walz&#8217;s command post van, parked out back of the Minnesota State Fair.\u00a0 Governor WALZ enters, dressed in his &#8220;regular Joe&#8221; costume, trailed by Lieutenant Governor FLANAGAN, sans turquoise earrings.\u00a0 Trailing after in the entourage are the Governor&#8217;s press secretary, Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, and Lt. Gov. Flanagan&#8217;s press aide Cat SCAT.\u00a0\u00a0 WALZ&#8217;s face is red, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425,130,320],"tags":[236,472],"class_list":["post-88282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-24","category-tc-media-bias","category-mndfl","tag-dramatization","tag-walz-for-vp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88283,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88282\/revisions\/88283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}