Vin Weber, Foot in Mouth

Driving home from work tonight, I heard a Minnesota Public Radio story about the aftermath of Giuliani dropping out of the race. Big deal, I wasn't really listening.

The story recounted that our governor, Tim Pawlenty, is stumping for John McCain, and how McCain is looking good, says Tim.

Then the reporter moved on to the Romney side of things. For the local angle on Romney, the story quoted Vin Weber, former Minnesota member of Congress and professional politico, who is now a "policy advisor" to Romney.

Now, it being radio, and me being a person who was driving at the time, I didn't get this down in writing, but this is basically what Weber said. In trying to make the case for Romney (who, as we are constantly told, signifies BUSINESS BUSINESS BUSINESS) Weber said something like, "McCain has been on the public payroll his whole adult life, the last 25 years of it in Washington."

Vin neglected to mention that the first 25 years were on the payroll of the U.S. military (or maybe 20 years if you don't count the 5 years McCain spent as a POW, being tortured, and so on).

I wonder if Romney would want to associate himself with a statement that implies that American soldiers are "on the public payroll" .... like all those federal employees, and god forbid, welfare queens. Or that military service is not "real world" experience, since that's what it seems Weber was trying to imply at the same time.

Needless to say, neither Weber (born in 1952) nor Romney (born in 1947) served in Vietnam. Too busy going to college and not thinking hard enough about how that would look during their future careers in politics.

I've got no intention of voting for John McCain, but I'm really tired of his Republican rivals, from Bush to Romney, trashing a person who obviously does what he believes in most of the time.