Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty Looking for GOP 2012 Nomination, Instead Wins BuzzFlash's GOP Hypocrite of the Week Award

Tim Pawlenty

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is one of those 2012 presidential candidates who's trying to lay low while still keeping his name in consideration. While Minnesotans still say they'd prefer to re-elect President Obama over the idea of Pawlenty in the White House, the two-term governor is still doing everything he can to attract and then deflect the attention of conservative movers and shakers.

It's a delicate dance, and in order to pull it off gracefully, he's had to quietly hone his sense of hypocrisy.

First, as seems to be a requirement for any Republican heavy-hitter these days, Pawlenty had to do a little fear-mongering on the healthcare reform legislation. Pawlenty told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough that worries about death panels "are not irrational concerns" and that bringing up the possibility that the government might someday kill off grandma is "not a crazy idea."

Not only has he tacitly endorsed the deather claims, but also he cautiously threw his support to the "tenthers," those who are trying to convince everyone that healthcare reform is somehow unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment. Just last week, Pawlenty said he might just invoke states' rights to reject the healthcare reform legislation (only if it contained something that his party he didn't like, of course). Just when he started sounding like secessionist Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, however, he pulled back, presumably because no one living in this century wants to elect a president who has no interest in being part of the Union.

And on federal funding, Pawlenty wants to have it both ways too. Back when it was popular to label emergency federal spending going to states as socialist pork, Pawlenty constructed a rich literary flourish, calling the stimulus package "a meandering spending buffet."

Of course he still took the money, perhaps because he's the governor of the longest-running blue state in the nation. What a great place for a Republican nominee for president to come from, huh, guys (wink, nudge)?

Then Pawlenty called Obama's healthcare plan "a joke," and told the president to stop spending money.

"We can't afford it. This is a nation that has got a debt load and a deficit load that is unsustainable. We're going to have, in my view, the federal government debt crisis equivalent of the mortgage crisis within 20 years," Pawlenty said on CNN's State of the Union. "Not unlike in the mortgage industry, the banking industry, the auto industry, now the health care industry. Soon you'll see that in the energy industry. This is a pattern with this administration of government encroaching into the private market."

As if that wasn't hypocritical enough, Pawlenty's back at the trough for more. On Tuesday, Pawlenty sent a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack requesting disaster relief funds for farmers in his state who incurred significant losses due to abnormally wet weather this season.

Now BuzzFlash doesn't object to helping out farmers, some of whom weren't even able to plant this season due to uncooperative weather. We did want to point out to the governor of Minnesota, however, that it sure is easy to ask the big ol' federal government for money for farmers, an honorable lot without which we might just starve. But when financial institutions threaten to take down the global economy or when foreclosures hit crisis levels or when the healthcare system becomes unsustainable and the president suggests we spend some money, it's equally easy for Pawlenty to cravenly say, "Hell no!"

Except for when the president is a Republican. Then it's OK to bail out megacorporations, apparently.

One commenter on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's piece on Pawlenty's turnaround for the farmers had this to say:

When Democrats spend taxpayers' money it's "socialism"; when Republicans spend taxpayers' money it's "defending the homeland against the terrorist forces of precipitation." Rain hates us for our freedom.

And that's why Tim Pawlenty is BuzzFlash's GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Remember our motto: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

Catch up with you soon.

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This is Tim Pawlenty's first GOP Hypocrite of the Week Award. Welcome to the club. You can see a list of all previous nominees here.

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