North Star Politics

The way I read this article, Gov. Pawlenty is acknowledging that the government shutdown is the Republicans' fault. He's right.

He's also right that the GOP is on the ropes. Today is the culmination of a very, very bad time for the Republicans. Guess what? It's only going to keep getting worse.

Happy Fitzmas. It's not all we hoped for, but it's enough. Enjoy.

This might be a really, really bad day for Bush. NYT story here, Kos post here. While AMERICAblog suggests that there may be no Fitzmas today, I'm still hopeful.

This administration is positively going down in flames. It's a beautiful thing to watch, isn't it?

House Minority Leader Matt Entenza is officially in on the race for attorney general. What caught my eye was this:

On the Republican side, state Rep. Jeff Johnson of Plymouth is also running for attorney general. A Republican hasn't been elected attorney general of Minnesota in nearly 40 years.

Some Republicans like to rail on us for our gubernatorial drought, I would tell them to look at this. Who do the people of the great state of Minnesota trust - year in and year out - with the fair and impartial enforcement of the law? DFLers.

I've mostly stayed out of any discussion of the whole issue, but I can't resist this morning. All the rumors point to today being Fitzmas. Enjoy yourself - today, justice will be served upon those who think they are above the law. They're going to find out that they're very wrong.

Today marks the third anniversary of the plane crash in Eveleth that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, staffers Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic, and Mary McEvoy, and the two pilots.

Obviously, I wasn't around when President Kennedy was assassinated, but I've heard folks talk about it who were. Everyone seems to remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. There have been two events during the course of my life that I remember similarly: the morning of Sept. 11th and the death of Sen. Wellstone on the morning of Oct. 25th, 2002.

The way we can best honor Paul's memory, of course, is by continuing to actively pursue Paul's dream of a better, more progressive America. Paul may be dead, but as long as we act in his memory, he will never be gone. Another good way to would be to honor Paul would be donate to Wellstone Action.

There's a Strib article from this morning, and even The Worst Blog in the World has something nice to say.

Rest in Peace, Paul. We miss you.

Who on God's green Earth is running Kelly Doran's website? Take a look on the left side, about halfway down the page. "Kelly Doran's Announcement Speach." Ridiculously unprofessional, and right on the front page, getting who-knows-how-many eyeballs a day. Is this guy a serious candidate?

A great woman has died.

After only 22 days of campaigning, Bud Philbrook has dropped out of the governor's race. What the hell was the point? I certainly don't endorse the Mike Hatch entry model; he played the will I/won't I game for far too long, but on the other hand, it really is important to see if your campaign can make it. Philbrook apparently missed this important step in Campaigning 101, and thus his campaign has ended after only three weeks. Pretty embarrassing.

(Via MDE)

It looks like Minnesota Democrats Exposed may been exposed (again?). The punchline? Michael Brodkorb works used to work for the Republican Party.

UPDATE: MDE, as is his usual M.O., is issuing a neutral statement in his comments.

I'll be honest; it doesn't really matter to me who MDE is. His information is, unfortunately, almost always correct. I, as an anonymous blogger, obviously respect and defend the right to blog anonymously, as long as it isn't used as a shield to hide behind when posting lies or libel. I have never tried to ascertain MDE's identity, nor do I intend to do so. While he's very often a real thorn in our sides as DFLers, he does find dirt that, all too often, deserves to be found. In many ways, he's a model for some of what us lefty bloggers should be doing to the other side. I'm no fan of his, but I do respect him, after a fashion, and I think the rest of us should too.

UPDATE #2: If MDE really is Brodkorb, he has quoted himself on MDE. That's nerve.