Read the "Hunting Man" Interview

Jesse defends his credentials for setting state conservation policy in this confrontational interview with a Star Tribune's outdoors columnist who had criticized him: "Until you hunted man, you haven't hunted yet. Because you need to hunt something that can shoot back at you to really classify yourself as a hunter. You need to understand the feeling of what it's like to go into the field and know that your opposition can take you out. Not just go out there and shoot Bambi."

Editorial Cartoon: Jesse the Head Hunter

Did Jesse Really Hunt Man?

Ex-Navy SEAL Bill Salisbury investigates Jesse's military service and concludes that he served as a member of an Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) in Vietnam and not as an elite SEAL. Salisbury on the difference between SEALs and UDTs: "SEALs in platoons of 12 to 14 men went looking for the VC and NVA in the swamps, paddies, and jungles of Vietnam; UDTs mainly floated around the South China Sea on ships with Marine battalion landing teams as part of what's called an amphibious ready group or ARG."

"Tell Jesse to Put Up or Shut Up"

One week after the "hunting man" interview, a Vietnam Army veteran says Minnesotans should tell Jesse Ventura to put up or shut up: "The people who had the most intense combat experience seldom talk about it at all in public. They virtually never flaunt it as the governor does. If he wants to trade on his Navy record, he should release his DD Form 214 and make a statement of the specific places and dates of his overseas service. If the governor is unwilling to make even such a bare-bones disclosure of his experience, he should shut up about it."

Jesse: Navy SEAL Since 1983

The Governor's office confirms that Ventura was a UDT member and not a Navy SEAL, but argues that because the two entities merged under the SEAL banner in 1983, UDT's can now refer to themselves as SEALs. However, spokesman John Wodele said Ventura "is very forthcoming and accurate in terms of his relationship with the U.S. Navy. He talks about the fact that he was in the Underwater Demolition Team. In fact, he has corrected me in the past." Cursor's examination of print interviews and broadcast transcripts finds that Ventura consistently refers to himself as a Navy SEAL, seldom explaining the distinction between SEAL and UDT.

Jesse the Brand

Since becoming governor, this "one-man conglomerate of private money-making ventures," has earned an estimated $1.5 to $3 million in outside income from two books, a one-night appearance as a wrestling referee and a series of 12 television broadcasts as an XFL commentator. He has also has sold the rights to his life story for a musical comedy.

Jesse's Handlers

From a talent agency located on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, to a law office in downtown Minneapolis, two men orchestrate the private career of a most public official. "When Ventura won the election in November 1998 and saw his celebrity value skyrocket, he made it clear he would be open for business."

Jesse the Moonlighter

Jesse's thirst for the celebrity spotlight has also left him open to criticism from other public officials and constituents. In this CNN report on the controversy surrounding Ventura's efforts to balance work and pay, critics react: "Here is a governor who is using his position as governor to become a celebrity. And not only a celebrity, but to make a significant amount of money on the side."

Shadowing Jesse

Twin Cities' TV stations have been following Jesse around the country and the world since he was elected governor in 1998, covering his every word, regardless of the cost. "What the governor is getting is dream coverage for a politician selling himself as a larger-than-life piece of living theater. What elected official doesn't fantasize about contriving an image so mediagenic it sustains precisely the kind of obsessive attention required to fortify his popularity?"

Jesse the XFL Commentator

Shortly before an XFL game became the lowest-rated show in prime-time history, founder Vince McMahon said the leagues biggest mistake was its selection of announcers. "Our research shows people don't like him [Ventura] on the XFL. He's too over the top. Hyperbole turns people off. They know when you're not telling the truth. We need football announcers, not WWF announcers."

Jesse Rides a Loser

A veteran Twin Cities Jesse-watcher says the XFL fiasco undermines a fundamental aspect of Ventura's positioning effort: "What's amusing to us here, is that the governor's shtick in both politics and show biz is heavily based on the "infallibility factor": the pretense that he never rides a loser and is never wrong."

Who's Jesse's Real Enemy?

Gary Wills' New York Review of Books profile of the newly-elected Jesse is a must read for anyone wanting insight into what makes the short-fused, governor/entertainer tick...tick...tick. "Jesse's big enemy is not the government or the press or the cashers-in on his fame. It is the demon of paranoid suspicion and conspiratorial distrust that lurks in him. Jesse's real enemy is Jesse."