Governor loony

Being an honest person myself, I've often wondered how people can blithely lie and actually believe in the reality that they create, instead of the one that the real world lives in. Is it willful ignorance? The inability to even tell? Some kind of brain malfunction? I don't know, but perhaps I can ask Governor Pawlenty, considering that today he let loose with one of the biggest whoppers I've ever heard from somebody older than four.

Pawlenty came out with a tax increase of 75 cents per pack of cigarettes. Only, he's saying it's a "fee" instead of a "tax." Apparently, he said this with a straight face, without crossing his fingers, and without laughing. Of course, nobody is buying it. If a gas tax is a tax and not a fee, then it's hard to see how a cigarette tax is a fee if no smoker actually sees any real benefits.

It is obvious to everybody that some tax needs to be raised. However, not everybody is apparently adult enough to admit it. Some people apparently want to pretend otherwise, in order to appease their masters.

But it's not going to work. Governor Paw-lenty, Taxpayers League lapdog, just piddled all over David Strom's living room rug. But he's hanging his head and whimpering, and looking up at David with his sad eyes, saying, "Please don't punish me." Good luck with that.