Our governor, Tim Pawlenty, who is obviously running for president, travelled to Washington to address the crazies at CPAC. How did he do? Here's a clue: at Power Line, John Hinderaker gives him the thumbs down.
Just bury him, then.
The whole riff on Tiger Woods's wife, and the 9-iron--what was that about? It seems someone must have been persuaded that it would be clever to work in a pop culture topical allusion. Embarrassing. When asked about it Sunday on Meet the Press, Pawlenty replied that "people still enjoy a sense of humor." But the reason he was asked about it, of course, is that everyone recognizes it wasn't funny--just dopey and odd.
If you wanted to give Pawlenty the benefit of the doubt--I don't, but if you did--you might say that he is not a lunatic like all these CPAC attendees who voted for Ron Paul (Ron Paul!) in their presidential straw poll, and, not being one of them, but trying to appeal to their sensibilities, he almost inevitably sounded like a moron.
Pawlenty, in other words, was so bad that trying to defend him against the charge of being a dope you end up saying, no, he is only craven. Everything Hinderaker says is true, except that he'd be better off with Hinderaker as his speech writer.
Believe it or not, I am also generally sympathetic with this post by Hinderaker's sidekick, Scott Johnson. But I would not call CPAC a "disgrace." It's a freak show.
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