What the hell is going on with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (R)? Has he, too, become a shameless propagandist?
Last night (Wed.) on FOX News’ Hannity and Colmes Pawlenty said:
Minnesota has a reputation of clean and fair and good elections. […] However finding 32 ballots in a trunk of a car and supposedly forgetting that they were there is suspicious.
The “32 ballots in the trunk of Minneapolis Elections Director Cindy Reichert’s car” story is a fabrication (or, a bizarre misunderstanding) by one of Sen. Norm Coleman’s lawyers.
David Brauer, a political reporter at MinnPost, documents the rumor’s origin and demise:
Reichert is all too happy to provide an explanation. She says the “car ballot” story is “just not true,” painting a picture of normal balloting procedures twisted into something grotesquely misleading.
The “car ballot” story emerged Saturday from the mouth of Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak, who, according to AP, told reporters, “We were actually told ballots had been riding around in her car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions.”
Knaak never provided a source and did not return two MinnPost calls for comment. However, he was already backing off his story at the same press event. As that day’s Pioneer Press noted, “Knaak said he feels assured that what was going on with the 32 ballots was neither wrong nor unfair.”
It’s odd that Pawlenty continues to propagate a rumor that was, essentially, retracted by the rumor’s creator on the same day it was created.
At this point, those who continue to spread the rumor are either willfully ignorant, or are happy to lie in order to “catapult the propaganda.” Which is it for Pawlenty?