Pawlenty radio hit-list consists of enemies, not songs

There’s nothing subtle about Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s (popular?) radio show: He makes the most of the hour WCCO-AM gives him every Friday to broadcast his political views, boldly and baldly. But beneath the banter and partisan bluster — sorry, swagger — Pawlenty has in each of his past two shows stealthily slipped a blade between the ribs of unnamed but identifiable political enemies. His hit list: attendees at the recent “Minnesota Leadership Summit.”

The background: Pawlenty turned down an invitation earlier this month to meet with a bipartisan group of current and former Minnesota leaders at the Capitol seeking a way out of the state’s budget woes. Instead he counter-programmed his own summit at a corporate HQ in Eden Prairie to toot the state economy’s horn.

So on his Sept. 18 show, Pawlenty sneered at the capitol summit, telling the WCCO audience “with the exception of Al Quie, there were no current Republicans there.” That dig seemed meant especially for former Gov. Arne Carlson, and it ushered in a war of words between the two.

On today’s show, Pawlenty took a swipe at the next guy who crossed him by attending the wrong summit: former House Speaker David Jennings. T-Paw railed against school districts that complained recently about delayed payments from the state, then reached back to recall the gall of an unnamed Minneapolis Public Schools superintendent who advocated for the district when “he knew — knew! – there were 900 empty classrooms.”

Jennings led the Minneapolis schools at a time when critics alleged the district wasted money by maintaining schools in which there were 600 or even 800 empty classrooms. (The 900 figure seems new, if the bile behind it is not.)

It’s like an Agatha Christie whodunit where guests at a country estate keep dropping. The rest of the attendees at the Minnesota Leadership Summit better watch their backs on future Friday mornings.