VP or not VP: It’s over; Scott Johnson bestows his patented, much-envied NRO kiss of death on Pawlenty

If past is prelude, Powerline blogger Scott Johnson’s post at National Review Online yesterday endorsing Tim Pawlenty’s campaign to be John McCain’s running mate may spell curtains for TP.

The last time Johnson gushed over a political figure from Minnesota at NRO, you may recall, the subject was his good friend, then-US Attorney Rachel Paulose. In the course of an impassioned thousand-word screed on Paulose’s persecution, he included a quote from Paulose herself so outrageous that it prompted a threat of insurrection from the staffers in her office, and led imminently to her demise. She was transferred back to the Justice Department in Washington within a couple of days.

[That quote, in which Eric Black later counted seven claims of victimage: "The McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color) is truly a disservice to our country."]

So Johnson is back touting Pawlenty, whom disaster now presumably awaits. It’s a shame to burn the governor’s two years of adroit, behind-the-scenes maneuvering to ensure he ended up in the right place at the right time–and for such a tepid endorsement, too: Pawlenty, every pundit’s frontrunner just a few short weeks ago, is "a worthy dark horse" in Johnson’s view, with "relatively conservative credentials." To readers of the magazine that Buckley built, being "relatively" conservative is about as attractive-sounding as being relatively cancer-free.