Nashville News Blog

On Tiny Cat Pants, Aunt B. takes Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to task for telling a group of young GOP'ers that in order to return to prominence, their party needs to get mad. Just like Eminem did after getting aerially 69'ed by a bare-assed Bruno at the MTV music awards:

I mean, good god damn, where does one even start in on how hilarious this is?

1. I wouldn't call Eminem a Democrat, but he was for sure one of the only mainstream artists to get a protest song out against Bush before the 2004 elections.

2. Young Republicans should turn misogyny into an artform so catchy that even arch-feminists like me sing along? Um, yes, let's not have any more of that, please.

3. Young Republicans should do massive amounts of drugs?

4. Young Republicans should befriend Elton John?

5. Young Republicans should be in on the joke?

Does Tim Pawlenty even know anything about Eminem?

No, he probably doesn't. Other than what the 23-year-old interns on staff tell him. But that's not the point.

Pawlenty may look like a dupe to us because we're not college-aged Republicans. But it's pretty clear, based on reactions from the kids in attendance, that his attempt to play to the crowd went over well. Especially since the Eminem reference was just used as a timely punchline to a joke about the media's infatuation with Obama.

Opening his remarks with a reference to NBC's "Inside the Obama White House" special, Pawlenty told the gathering of about 200 students, "I haven't seen something that staged since that half-naked Austrian fell onto the face of Eminem at the MTV music awards."

Rim shot!

But in Pawlenty's defense, hitting a young, conservative crowd with an opening 1-2 punch that manages to make fun of Obama, a fawning "liberal" media and name-drops two guys that all the young kids are talking about these days is actually pretty strong stump speechin'. Something we should see a lot more of considering he's likely to run for President in 2012.

All the more reason to let him pass on this one. Better to conserve your energy for the real whoppers to come.