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Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The silly season officially has started again.

This letter, to the St. Cloud Times editor - Elwyn Tinklenberg is the greatest thing to happen since sliced bread and bottled beer. He will save our nation from mishap, sin, perdition, you name it, he's THE MAN.

Pat Welter says so.

Read it, it is not exactly worded that way, but the gist is the gist.

Then, Freedom rings a totally different tune - Right wing blog stupidity and all, worth quoting:

Here’s what Welter said that I find objectionable:

"He knows it’s time to recommit to our ideals and find ways to get beyond what divides us. And because he knows how to build coalitions, because he is not an 'either/or' politician who says 'my way or the highway,' Tinklenberg gets things done. And importantly, he does it in an ethical way. We need that in the 6th."

Frankly, it’s impossible for me to think of a former lobbyist as appealing to our higher ideals. As for Tinklenberg getting things done, that isn’t difficult when you’re spreading the money around. That isn’t the type of leadership we need in Washington. There’s already too many hogs at that trough.

I’d argue that someone that’s already decided to impeach President Bush before articles of impeachment are even debated in the House Judiciary Committee and before he’s even been elected isn’t ethical. Doesn’t Mr. Tinklenberg think that the presumption of innocence is a cornerstone of the justice system? Shouldn’t he at least know what the charges are before forming an opinion? Shouldn’t he base his opinion on something resembling verifiable proof?

That isn’t ethical leadership. That’s unprincipled pandering for votes to win an endorsement. That isn’t what we need in Washington.

What’s needed is Michele Bachmann’s type of principled leadership. To my recollection, Michele doesn’t pander for votes. She says what she thinks. What’s most impressive is that Michele has a set of unshakeable set of core beliefs, which include prosperity and freedom at the top of her list.

The differences between an anything goes politician like Mr. Tinklenberg and a principled politician like Michele are numerous and obvious. The last thing we need is another anything goes politician in Washington.


Well, my own impression is the guy is right and Elwyn Tinklenberg never met a dollar he didn't like.

And in quoting the Welter letter, Tinklenberg's been clear in saying my way is the highway. Unlike Bob Olson, Elwyn Tinklenberg really does not know much else. His way is the highway, his million or more in lobbying-consulting income is from the highway, and he'd pave it with what he's been paid to advocate and advance.

To me, those are not the most ethical things, but Ms. Welter says Elwyn has been behaving in an ethical way when he's getting things done (and presumably when collecting the fees and cashing the checks made out to Tinklenberg Group, for getting things done, or promising or trying to get things done), and she would not have a prejudged bias at all, would she?

Also my impression; Bush should be impeached for arrogance and lying so he could ramp up a failed jingoistic oil war [which had it succeeded, would have been as immoral but not as unpopular - where I saw Jim Baker in a soundbite blurb on the tube advertising an upcoming PBS documentary on George H.W. Bush, Baker saying, roughly, "They pestered me about why we did not then go on to Bhagdad; now they are not asking me that anymore."]

And Michele Bachmann, not pandering for votes?

Get real.

Kissing Bush after the speech was pandering for attention, and for Bachmann, historically, attention has yielded votes and she craves both with an almost pathological zeal.

But that Bush-kiss was Bachmann, small time pandering.

Big Time --- The Freedom Ring guy must not have seen the YouTube items Ken Avidor posted from last election cycle, Michele Bachmann playing the crowd as special guest at Pastor Mac's out-of-district circus show, saying God picked her for Congress - I suppose that was because He thought she should have the salary, attention, healthcare package, and pension rights - and not because she'd do anything because she hasn't.

The Freedom Ring guy has blinders on.

God must have too, if he chose Michele Bachmann.



But, does, just perhaps, Pat Welter have either blinders, or some meat in the fire?

Who might this citizen-writer, Pat Welter be? The freedom ringer never asked.

In the past Michele Bachmann's then press secretary, Heidi Fredrickson, a legacy Bachmann inherited from Mark Kennedy, took a lot of heat for soliciting "planted" letters to the editor, and now it appears to me that before Michele and crew can resurrect that shabby tactic, Elwyn Tinklenberg has used it.

For some flavor of why the neutral and unaligned Ms. Welter, Dr. Welter perhaps, may think well of Elwyn, is it possible, to use Lyndon Johnson's term, she's in the tent pissing out and not outside the tent where there'd be some chance she'd be pissing in?

Is this the same Pat Welter with an online presence, here, here, and here, with the LTE's existence prominently featured as Monday May 5, news, here?

Well, gee. This Pat Welter gets a local DFL "Wellstone Award," is in the teacher's union or that generic school administrator-teacher alliance, has been identified with the Campaign Finance Board as chair of a candidate's committee, and has her letter featured on the same local DFL website where her having in the past received the "Wellstone Award" was featured.

That's kind of shabby of the paper to post a letter like that without disclosing for the readership the built-in bias of the writer. It's not best journalism, in my view.

And how exactly does this differ from the bad, bad, "perhaps illegal" (if you believe Minnesota Monitor) solicitations of Ms. Fredrickson for Ms. Bachmann?

It differs in degree, perhaps, but not in kind.

Know the affiliation, then weigh the trustworthiness of the letter.

And if you doubt my "silly season" caption --- Michele not pandering for votes; Elwyn getting things done in an ethical way; each a backhanded stab at the other side, each a matter of opinion - of judgment - and each ringing more like a counterfiet coin than true gold, in my opinion.