Texas Observer 9/24/10My Rick Perry Problem...and Yours During the 1980s I spent several Easter vacations sailing with the late columnist Molly Ivins and some of her leading liberal friends. After the day’s sail out of Corpus Christi or Port Aransas, our party would reassemble on land for drinks and dinner. I wish I had a double Scotch (and probably did have a double Scotch) for every time Ivins remarked: “Whenever two or three reporters and commentators are gathered together, they tell the most revealing, engaging, sometimes appalling stories of happenings behind the scenes, but rarely share a word of it with their readers.”
Now that I am a writer on my own, having left the Houston Chronicle after 34 years, and with Texans facing another four years of government of, by and for Gov. Rick Perry and his cronies, I see no reason to hold back.
(snip)
The problem is not simply that Perry lacks integrity, which he does. The worst of it is that Perry is so dedicated to perpetuating himself in office and so mindless of the public interest that he doesn’t even know what integrity looks like. From my decades-long observation post on the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board, I saw many examples of how Perry auctioned his power to the highest bidder, including the one that follows:
As the Texas Legislature was wrapping up in May 1999, Port of Houston commissioners voted to spend $75,000 in taxpayer money to hire two lobbyists in Austin for only a few days’ work. Lobbyist Mike Toomey, Rick Perry’s on-and-off aide, adviser and longtime crony, would get $50,000.
Port officials said there was no particular threat to the port’s interests in the Legislature. If that were true, the late-session lobbying fees would be not only a complete waste of money, but a pointless transfer of public money to private hands. What port officials feared was that some obscure legislation diluting local control of port finances and operations would sneak through as the session ended. They hired Toomey because they thought he could get Lt. Gov. Perry to keep such a bill off the Senate floor until the clock ran out.
One of the best tell it like it is, Op-Eds I have ever read.
James Howard Gibbons, you sir, deserve a huge applause and this piece needs more coverage!
:applause::applause::applause:
:yourock:
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