None of the Tim Walz failings have been enjoyable to chronicle. Jesse Ventura, Gov. Turnbuckle, was enjoyable to cover, even when he threatened to mow down the media with his state SUV. One time, Rudy Perpich brought an ink-stained lot of us to the attic in the old Irvine Mansion on Summit Avenue to show us a hose he had draining from the roof into a bucket — proof, he said, that the Legislature was treating him cruelly for not dumping millions of dollars into the governor’s mansion.

Those were the days, goofy governors serving a well-oiled state machine.

Walz?

Walz should not be running for a third term. He should resign immediately. He can’t explain the fraud under his watch, except for bromides and boilerplate nonsense and whatever else he can come up with — he speaks at a ridiculously high-speed tempo — to bring Donald Trump into his deflections.

Trump’s indecent playground bullying serves no purpose, but Trump did not allow fraud to happen in Minnesota. This is all on Walz. Too many sources, including a state representative, Marion Rarick, and more than 430 Department of Human Services employees, said that word came down through the chain of the bureaucracy to keep pushing our money out the door even when its final direction had been discovered.

The Walz fraud is now a national story. He can’t hide from it. He can’t continue to pretend that he didn’t know about it. He can’t “aw, shucks” his way out of this because his lame “aw, shucks” posturing has always been an act anyway. He has flirted with the idea that he would be thought a racist if he raised a fuss, so he chose instead to make an entire community “less than” by not expecting them to play by the book, which, of course, is racist itself.

We have been poorly served. Minnesotans are having their eyes opened, especially when they open their property tax statements or really understand the way any size business has been treated by this state. We wonder where we would be if Walz and his incompetent and short-sighted legislative brothers and sisters didn’t blow the $18 billion surplus and then stare out the window, yawning, while another billion was stolen. The indictments keep coming; we don’t even have a final tally yet.

The national commentary tone is embarrassment for Minnesota, that things could get this bad. We actually don’t need the sympathy of the New York Times and the Washington Post, but the sentiment is accurate. We are embarrassed. Every time Walz opens his mouth is embarrassing.

Trump’s outbursts — Somalis have destroyed this state; they haven’t, we have a governor in charge of that — only served to give another platform to the gas-lighting virtuous among us to lecture us about how Somalis are important to the state and are, in fact, our friends and neighbors. The governor, the mayors and the city councils, trembling in fear of appearing racist, are pretty much saying, “it wasn’t their fault they stole the money.” It certainly has nothing to do with racism to say, well, yes, it was.

Ilhan Omar, on CNN just the other day, blamed the fraud on hastily available funding for new programs and there being no guardrails in place. By that pathetic excuse, she might think it’s OK to rob a bank if there is no security guard present.

Omar, a congresswoman, has a soapbox more significant than most of us. I am unaware that she ever denounced the fraud. She has given us boilerplate nonsense from time to time, and, because she is quicker on her feet than Walz, she has never bothered with the bumpkin act. Minnesotans are perfectly willing to be friends and neighbors with all our friends and neighbors, but are Somalis standing with all Minnesotans to condemn the fraud? Has any Somali leader pounded his or her fist on the podium to rail against the theft?

Has Walz?

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.

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