In a way, Tim Pawlenty is the perfect running mate for Mitt Romney; he’s a fundamentalist Christian, a creationist, and a climate change denier, but he somehow manages to project a bland non-threatening persona.

In other words, a reactionary nut who doesn’t look like a reactionary nut. Perfect.

It was four years ago this summer, when Tim Pawlenty ranked high on the list of John McCain’s potential running mates, and Mr. Pawlenty and his wife, Mary, were plowing through a voluminous questionnaire probing deep into their finances and almost every other aspect of their lives.

“I remember the two of us joking one night at some inhumane hour, ‘No way is Mitt Romney doing this by himself!’ ” Mr. Pawlenty later wrote in his book. “We had a good laugh over that.”

After a short-lived presidential bid of his own last year, Mr. Pawlenty is again being considered for the Republican ticket. His fate is in the hands of Mr. Romney, a rival-turned-friend, who is on the cusp of announcing his vice-presidential selection. Mr. Romney has reached a decision, his friends believe, and he may disclose it as soon as this week.

The Republican Party is deliberately lying to the American public about the dangers of climate change, and presidential contender Tim Pawlenty proved it when he appeared on Fox News and claimed that “science indicates” that global warming is due to natural causes.

“I denounced it for a number of reasons, one of which is the science is bad, and it’s in great dispute,” Pawlenty explained Tuesday. “There is climate change — there’s always been climate change — but until recently, people were worried as much about global cooling.” …

“So there is climate change, but the reality is the science of it indicates that most of it, if not all of it, is caused by natural causes,” he said on Fox News. “And as to the potential human contribution to that, there’s a great scientific dispute about that very issue.”

There’s absolutely no doubt that Pawlenty is lying here; either he knows that there is no “great scientific dispute” and is lying about that, or he’s lying when he claims to have investigated the issue and changed his mind — because there’s no way an impartial reading of the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change could ever lead an honest person to conclude that it’s in dispute. Yes, there are always disagreements about details, and arguments over interpretations, but the vast preponderance of evidence leaves no doubt that carbon dioxide produced by human activity is the main driver of the climate changes being measured and studied around the world.

Pawlenty isn’t alone in his determined ignorance; nearly all of the top people in the GOP spout similar nonsense. What the Republican Party’s leaders are doing is incredibly dangerous, and incredibly irresponsible. They’re setting the United States up for failure and disaster in the coming years.

This isn’t the only type of science Pawlenty denies; he’s also a creationist, who believes that public schools should teach creationism alongside evolution in science classes: Pawlenty: Another GOP Creationist on the Rise.

One of the odd moments (out of many) at last night’s Republican debate came when moderator John King asked Tim Pawlenty about his attacks on Mitt Romney’s health care plan, using the term “Obamneycare.”

The question here on the campus of Saint Anselm University from CNN moderator John King was straightforward: “Why ‘Obamneycare’?”

It also was completely predictable. By throwing his first serious punch at Romney on the eve of the debate, Pawlenty ensured that his health care attack would come up Monday night.

But when the question came, Pawlenty was caught off guard and offered a succession of halting answers. First he tried to dodge, criticizing President Barack Obama’s approach to health care reform.

King pushed harder: “You don’t want to address why you called Gov. Romney’s, ‘Obamneycare’?”

Pawlenty started backtracking, arguing that he had been asked about “similarities” between the Romney and Obama health care plans. “I just cited President Obama’s own words that he looked to Massachusetts as a blueprint,” Pawlenty said.

King’s follow-up was incredulous: “If it was Obamneycare on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ why is it not Obamneycare standing here, with the governor right there?”

That’s when Pawlenty just seemed to give up, abandoning his line of attack and reiterating: “Using the term ‘Obamneycare’ was a reflection of the president’s comments.”

I suspect that Pawlenty abandoned this line of attack because he realized, as soon as he got out of the Fox News echo chamber, that “Obamneycare” is the single dumbest, clumsiest political neologism ever coined.

He’s rabidly anti-gay, a climate change denier, and is in favor of letting schools teach creationism as science, and Tim Pawlenty announced today that he’s running for President in the Republican Party. He’ll fit right in.

Meanwhile, in what may be a subtle commentary, his hometown newspaper ran the story of Pawlenty’s announcement on the obituary page.

At FrumForum, Noah Kristula-Green and Tim Mak ask the poignant question: Why is Pawlenty On Stage With These Crazy People?

Their premise is that Tim Pawlenty is the only really electable candidate out of the extremist loons who participated in last night’s GOP debate.

Which is just ludicrous, of course, because Pawlenty’s crazy credentials are fully up to date. Don’t believe the propaganda from GOP operatives, trying to tell you that Pawlenty is some kind of “moderate.”

See:
Tim Pawlenty Endorses Another Anti-Gay Hate Group
Tim Pawlenty Gives Interview to Religious Right’s Most Crazed Fanatic: Wants to Reinstate DADT
Why I Left the Right, Exhibit P for Pawlenty
Pawlenty: Another GOP Creationist on the Rise
A Reply to David Frum

There may have been a time when the “moderate” label could have been properly applied to Tim Pawlenty, but that time is long past.

This is shaping up to be the most reactionary far right Republican Party presidential campaign in history. We’ve got serial philanderer and newly-minted religious right mouthpiece Newt Gingrich, creationist anti-gay panderer to hate groups Tim Pawlenty, Herman “All Muslims want to kill us” Cain, Haley “The KKK wasn’t so bad” Barbour, and now, to complete the clown gallery, pseudo-libertarian extremist Rand Paul.

C-SPAN has a live video feed from CPAC; today’s schedule includes creationist Republican Tim Pawlenty at 3 pm Eastern, followed by creationist libertarian Ron Paul at 3:30. At 4 pm, creationist Republican Rick Perry will speak, followed by creationist libertarian Herman Cain at 4:30.

Also at 3 pm, anti-Muslim bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller will be hosting an “unofficial CPAC event,” a preview of their cheesy new propaganda film:

The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks – Maryland Ballroom Sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (1.5 hours) Speakers: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, 9/11 Family Members, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan (invited), plus a special screening of a trailer for the new AFDI documentary, The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks

And again, they show their complete lack of class; after waging a year-long campaign of hate speech and incitement against them, Spencer and Geller list Imam Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan as “(invited).”

LGF author freetoken has an excellent Page on Republican Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty, the smiling, affable face of the extreme religious right, as he endorses the positions of yet another rabid anti-gay hate group with “family” in its name, The Family Leader: Pawlenty Boasts His Creationist, Anti-Gay Credentials In Iowa Tour.

As I’ve discussed several times now, Vander Plaats heads a group called The Family Leader, itself a new repackaging of the previous groups such as The Iowa Family Policy Center. Vander Plaats and the IFPC led the recall of 3 Iowa Supreme Court justices because they dared to rule, in what scholars agree is an accurate reading of the Iowa Constitution, that it was unconstitutional to forbid gay marriage according to the Iowa Constitution. This forcing out of Supreme Court justices not for any misconduct on the part of the justices but because of religious beliefs is unprecedented, and it really deserves more attention. I consider it the first real successful step towards theocracy.

Anyway, the IFPC (now organizationally a subset of The Family Leader) not only campaigned against the justices. It has been promoting a bigoted, anti-gay campaign that compares exposing children to homosexuality as being worse than second-hand smoke exposure. …

But wait, there’s more!

At the IFPC Blog one can learn even more about what interests the IFPC, such as which blogs they like, found under “My Blog List”. It has only 5 entries - 3 religious blogs, a conservative news org, and…. get this - The Shrieking Harpy herself! That’s right, the IFPC blog luvs them some Pamela Geller. (Yes I have a screen shot should the IFPC try to deny it some day.)

Also see:
Tim Pawlenty Gives Interview to Religious Right’s Most Crazed Fanatic: Wants to Reinstate DADT

In an interview with one of the religious right’s most deranged and hateful characters (the execrable Bryan Fischer of the viciously homophobic American Family Association), former Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he supports reinstating “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

In addition to being hate-filled and fanatical, Bryan Fischer is really, really dim. He titles his article, “Pawlenty: would reinstate ban on homosexuals in military,” but DADT is not a “ban,” of course.

Previously, Fischer has called for a total ban on mosques in America and a ban on Muslims in the military, said Adolf Hitler was so evil because he was gay, said that gays will molest sleeping soldiers, and even claimed that God wants Christians to commit genocide against their enemies in war. He’s so extreme he almost makes Pat Robertson look sensible.

Pawlenty likes to present himself as a nice guy; clean cut, always perky, smiling all the time. But this really shows you the ugly face underneath that mask.

And by the way, Pawlenty, like almost every other top GOP politician, is a creationist.

Chris Cillizza has a bit about Sarah Palin’s decision to attend the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, but not CPAC 2010, at The Fix:

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s decision to attend — and speak at — the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans in April transforms that event into the first legitimate cattle-call of the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes. Palin announced late Thursday that she would attend SRLC, joining Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as announced speakers. Interestingly, Palin also announced on Thursday that she would not be speaking at CPAC, a gathering of conservatives in Washington in mid February — a decision, according to those familiar with her thinking, due at least in part to the fact that the John Birch Society is one of the sponsors. The decision to attend SRLC but not CPAC — love those acronyms! — seems to be a rare instance of Palin refusing to play to type, bucking the grassroots for a more establishment-oriented event.

I should note that this statement is from “those familiar with her thinking,” and not a quote from Palin herself. Also interesting: the use of “grassroots” to describe a conference that accepts the John Birch Society as a cosponsor.

Sarah Palin, of course, had a previous public relations brush with the JBS.

And I can’t help being dismayed that all four of the GOP politicians mentioned in Cillizza’s post are creationists: Jindal, Huckabee, Pawlenty, and Palin.

The Republican Leadership.