Ben Golnik’s refrain: “I was not a check-signer, I was not a check-signer”. Yeah, you were just the frigging Executive Director, with power enough to help Ron Carey end Tostenson’s career in the Republican Party of Minnesota.

Lost in all the hubbub of the slow-motion trainwreck that is the Republican Party of Minnesota has been any evidence that anyone in charge is at all interested in getting to the root of its longstanding problems, and not just with money. Instead, the scandals are buried, the whistleblowers attacked, and the people who were in charge when the problems were created are allowed to go on doing what they’d been doing without any major hitches in their giddy-up.

The persons running the Republican Party of Minnesota wanted to show they really weren’t a bunch of sexist slobs by having The First Female Senate Majority Leader, yet when she and a male staffer were found to be doing the horizontal bop, she and only she is the one who loses her job — just as typically happens when a male boss in private industry is caught in an affair with a female subordinate.

The simple fact is that it was the persistence of the non-establishment media — the blogs both local and national, and the alt-weekly City Pages — that shed the most light on Tony Sutton’s actions. It is because of them that he has resigned in disgrace, leaving behind over $500,000 in debt and a deeply divided party. If not for them, he’d likely still be party chair today.

Trying to decide what to talk about this fine morning, preferably something that hasn’t already been covered here on this website. Should it be Jerry Brown’s advocacy for high-speed rail, which may be a big part of what saves the state and the nation?

Should it be the looming scandal hinted at by the Rick Perry sex ad?

But then I decided that I’d stick closer to my home state of Minnesota, and talk about failed burrito baron Tony Sutton.