You may have heard Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s name being bandied about as a possible pick for McCain’s vice presidential candidate. More recently, he showed up GamePolitics.

So, what part of this story involves video games? Well, he has an anti-video game history, having signed into law one of those laws controlling video games that got slapped down by the courts as unconstitutional. Secondly, the stolen van he was riding around in had an Xbox installed in it.

Yep. Pawlenty was riding around in a stolen van. Stolen from the band Everclear.

It was a complete accident. A driver was supposed to pick up a van from a Holiday Inn to chauffer him around in. He went to the wrong Holiday Inn and hotel staff gave him the wrong van.

The van the driver picked up was a tricked-out touring vehicle, complete with an LCD video screen, an Xbox and video games and an iPod-ready, six-speaker stereo system.

The van’s owner is a lad by the name of Sharkey Laguna who appears to rent these things to bands. After he reported the van stolen to the police the mystery was eventually cleared up.

Now, I’m no lawyer, but it seems obvious nobody is going to be pressing charges here. No harm, no foul.

But… supposing someone did… would Pawlenty be an accessory to Grand Theft Auto?

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