The DFL’s Deus Ex Machina and Molnau’s Amor Fati

Today, the Senate is expected not to confirm Carol Molnau as Commissioner of Transportation.

Nine days after the I-35W Bridge collapsed, I concluded that Molnau should resign.

I stand by every word I wrote then:

"Molnau should step down from the MnDOT job. With everyone’s best wishes, a collective fond remembrance of seriously and hilariously rattling former Independent Gov. Jesse Ventura by tapping his shoulder on the TPT’s
Almanac famous public policy couch, a clear understanding that the
bridge collapse was not her fault, and the same clear understanding
that life’s not fair–and sometimes political life is exponentially
unfair."

We are now seven months post bridge collapse, and the facts — as we know them at this point in time — are that a bridge designed in the 1960s couldn’t withstand the traffic we drove there 40-plus years later. A design problem no one could anticipate. A gusset plate. Not a Commissioner.

Nevertheless, politics is politics. All that DFL animosity toward "no new taxes" and GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty
was channeled into transportation funding policy. Set aside the fact
that transportation funding increases stalled out in the 1990s because DFL transit advocates wanted what the DFL
road advocates have: A permanent source of funding. [Roads get
constitutionally dedicated funding; metro transit funding
now gets a Twin Cities metro sales tax increase in the legislation that
became law despite Pawlenty's veto pen.]

Animosity being animosity, a vague target like "no new taxes" also had to manifest itself in something breathing and walking.

Enter Molnau.

The breathing and walking scapegoat. The DFL’s deus ex machina, the "resolution
to a story that does not pay due regard to the story’s internal logic
and is so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, allowing
the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, though more
palatable, ending."

To Democrats in the Senate. Remember that, today. Carol Molnau
is the "improbable, though more palatable, ending" to a bridge falling
down in Minneapolis. Wasn’t her fault, you know that. So, be kind.
Send her on her way without adding insult to injury. No need to pile
on. Tone down the floor debate.

To Carol Molnau. Amor fati. Love your fate…because you have no other choice. Res ipse loquitur. It is what it is. For now.

Because the Carol Molnau I know is a carpe diem kind of gal.
Seize the new day in your personal life, or seize it in a reincarnation
of your political one. [And please do seize Jesse Ventura's arm, whenever you want.]

Most of the DFL deus ex machina crowd knows in their hearts of hearts that they did you wrong.

The telling of that is in the fact that the dirty deed is being done under cover of today’s budget shortfall announcement.

That’s a small consolation prize, granted. But after seven months of political onslaught, any prize will do. And, you still have that big prize, Lt. Gov. You’re number two.

Amor fati.