Joe Biden's reputation isn't the only one descending to junk bond status this week.
After announcing mid-this-past-week that he was basically chosen to "code-talk with white men", the rest of the nation is learning what half of Minnesota tried to tell you all last year; Tim Walz realy is as dumb as Dan Quayle was supposed to have been.
Twin Cities writer Ann Bauer - who went from being a Democrat to a pretty staunch critic of the Governor - whetted my appetite:
I'm so ambivalent about the fact that, today, every pundit in America seems to agree @GovTimWalz is criminally stupid. On one hand, it's quite embarrassing for the state of Minnesota. On the other, I keep wanting to shout, "NOW, DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN?"
— Ann Bauer (@annbauerwriter) May 1, 2025
Nate Silver was uncharacteristically scathing, shooting blue-on-blue (language not safe for reading to kids):
I was critical the clusterfuck that was Biden/Harris/Walz, but everything they've done or said since then suggests that I was far too gentle.https://t.co/Euv4vBaXAg
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 1, 2025
Ya think, Nate?
Caitlyn Flanagan summed up what about half of Minnesota already knew:
Hold the phone. You speak a secret code known only to white men?
— Caitlin Flanagan (@CaitlinPacific) May 1, 2025
Tell us more, and provide a glossary. https://t.co/LHI1IG6S3v
Ssssshhhhhh. The only rule of "Secret White Guy Code" is that there is no such thing as "Secret White Guy Code".
Peter Savodnik:
Somehow Democrats think this is not offensive to most Americans. https://t.co/qBJ6UBQEtB
— Peter Savodnik (@petersavodnik) April 30, 2025
Josh Barro:
The biggest indictment of Kamala Harris is that she was so afraid of being overshadowed by Josh Shapiro that she put this mediocrity on the ticket instead (and then didn't even really use him in the way he was putatively useful) https://t.co/Zd9qdTygiz
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) April 30, 2025
Barro brings up a useful point: for a guy who was ostensibly brought on to "code talk white guys", his public persona during the campaign - flouncing and high-kicking about like a Rockette, jazz hands fluttering about like a sign language interpreter who hit the Nespresso machine a couple times too often, putting his wife Gwen - who may actually treat kindergartners with more respect than the adult audience - onstage.
Of course, it's hard to overestimate the damage Walz's disastrous debate perforemance against JD Vance did to the Harris/Walz campaign - and hard to really consclusively estimate how the effect that the inconsistencies in the story of Walz's retirement from the Minnesota National Guard as his unit got ready to deploy to Iraq had.
But Minnesota Purple Heart veteran, former state Representative and author John Kriesel noted a parallel that can't be making the Governor or his supportrers happy, after learning Walz's debate prep was an anxiety-riddled nightmare:
It is a good thing that Walz retired before the Iraq deployment. War is much tougher than a debate. https://t.co/L8Mju0n6iS
— John Kriesel (@johnkriesel) April 28, 2025
As I noted in one of my first pieces for Hot Air, I think it's too early to count Walz out for 2028; he's got Ken Martin as his very own personal DNC chairman.
But that was predicated on Walz upping his game considerably.
Even Ken Martin is going to have his work cut out for him at this rate.
