Ho-hum. Another day, another story on how Governor Gutshot’s leaving Minnesota bleeding and alone deep in the woods:

Galen Robinson has devoted much of his quiet legal career to taking on landlords who don’t return deposits and lenders who target low-income people who are in a financial bind.

On Monday, the legal aid attorney known for his trademark ponytail will aim a little higher — a state Supreme Court showdown with lawyers for Gov. Tim Pawlenty, whom Robinson is suing over unilateral cuts to a state nutrition program for the ailing poor.

Robinson and his small legal team are challenging a signature political move of Pawlenty’s, that, if the challenge succeeds, could dial back the governor’s budget-cutting authority and lay down a bolder line between legislative and executive powers.

Here’s the deal: In the run-up for his 2012 presidential bid (and as a continuation of the same behaviors adopted when he was tongue-polishing John McCain’s shoes in the hope of getting onto the 2008 ticket), our illustrious governor has been cheerfully and dictatorially taking an ax to what remains of the wonderful infrastructure that made Minnesota the envy of America when I was a child. And he’s doing this even as he plays cash-skimming games with the "Support Our Troops" license plate fees that would have got him impeached if he weren’t a Republican.

As the Robinson lawsuit hints, the deliberate wrecking of what makes Minnesota work may well be most dangerous where the state’s legal entities are concerned. How badly has GOP presidential wannabee Tim Pawlenty messed with Minnesota’s judicial system during his time as absentee governor of the state? His own former best buddy and partner in the now-defunct Rider Bennett law firm, Eric Magnuson — the guy he made Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court just two years ago — is now one of his biggest public enemies, stepping down from the court in June after having spent most of his time on the court fighting with Gutshot over the slashing budget cuts Pawlenty instituted in Minnesota’s justice system.

Pray for us — we have a Republican governor who thinks he can be president come 2012. Until he’s finally out of the governor’s mansion for good, there’s no limit to the harm he can do in the chase for Republican primary voters.