Pawlenty on Cavuto: 'I have no idea what I'm talking about'

by: Joe Bodell

Fri Jun 05, 2009 at 06:57:42 AM CDT

"But beyond just the money and the politics, just as a matter of philosophy and our country, the nationalization of the auto industry, the likely partial or full nationalization of the health care industry, the energy industry -- this is gonna be a very different country 12 or 24 months from now...This is not the United States of America that we know and love and remember. This looks more like some sort of, you know, republic from South America circa 1970s."

1. Blatant scare tactics. McCarthyism much?
2. No one is proposing nationalization of the health care industry. Obama's health care plan would provide a public plan option to complete with private plans so that everyone in America has access to affordable health insurance.
3. Has Gov. Pawlenty read history? Industries in Latin America (note: that's Central America too, Timmy!) were nationalized by leftist (read: NOT left-of-center as we have in America, but true LEFTist) governments because they were profitable and those profits were being hauled out of the country, mainly by American corporations.

That isn't even vaguely similar to what we have right now in the US. Failing insurance companies and brokerages, carmakers on their knees in bankruptcy? A government whose united line on the matter has been to get the carmakers back out of bankruptcy as soon as possible because they don't want to run a car company?

Politics is politics, and Tim Pawlenty has to demonstrate to the Republican presidential primary crowd that he can attack 1950s era scarecrows and windmills just as effectively as Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin can. But that does not entitle him to his own set of facts. Naturally, Fox News's Cavuto was pleased as punch to let Pawlenty pass this drivel off as true.

Not so much out here in the reality-based community.