(John Hinderaker)
Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz is utterly incompetent. For the details, read the just-released issue of Thinking Minnesota, which drives political debate in my state. During the days of rioting, looting and arson in Minneapolis that followed the death of George Floyd, it became obvious that the situation was a disaster. Walz tried to distance himself from the debacle by saying in a press conference that fellow Democrat Jacob Frey, the Boy Mayor of Minneapolis, had been an “abject failure,” but Walz was now taking over and things would get better. Rarely has a politician been so definitively thrown under the bus.
Walz’s denunciation came as a shock to Mayor Frey, whose political career is presumed to be over. But Frey has finally counter-attacked, and in a man-bites-dog moment, the Star Tribune is willing to criticize a Democratic Governor of Minnesota. I am not sure this has ever happened before.
Frey has nothing to lose and knows where some of the bodies are buried. So we get this from the Star Tribune: Mayor Frey: Gov. Walz hesitated to deploy National Guard during Minneapolis riots.
The Strib’s story is based largely on texts and emails obtained from the City of Minneapolis via a public records request. The fact that the Strib was able to obtain them only two months after the events in question means that Frey was eager to get them out.
Jacob Frey has been cast as the mayor who lost control of his city, enduring criticism from the state’s governor that the Minneapolis response to rioting in May over the police killing of George Floyd was an “abject failure.”
Now Frey is speaking out, saying Gov. Tim Walz failed to take his requests for help seriously until it was too late.
In an interview Monday, Frey said that Walz hesitated to send in the National Guard to quell the growing violence and then blamed him for allowing the city to burn.
“Through an extremely difficult situation, I told the truth,” Frey said Monday.
Unlike Walz, evidently.
“I relayed information as best I could to state partners. And we did what was demanded for the sake of our city.”
Frey told the truth, and Walz lied. That is the gist of the Strib story, which includes copious references to the paper trail that shows the governor’s incompetence.
Rarely has ineptitude at all levels combined to produce a disaster equal to what has happened in Minneapolis. The whole story is told here.
It is hard not to be sympathetic to Mayor Frey, who obviously is unqualified for the office he holds, but nevertheless tried, at least, to protect his city, and was sold down the river by his state’s governor and fellow Democrat, the even more incompetent Tim Walz. The good news is that Walz is up for re-election in 2022, and given his deepening unpopularity, it is hard to see how he can win a second term.
