Doing the Tennessee Waltz
While I’m posting I’ll also go ahead and put up a link to my ginormous link-filled post from Thursday, as I live-blogged the unfolding Tennessee Waltz legislative scandal.
I was at my computer that morning, just lazing away and catching up on my blog reading early. When the news broke on Memphis television at 9:30, some part of me realised the importance of this and the need to have one-stop shopping for links and information. I volunteered for that role.
I spent the next 12 hours hunting down posts and links, reading blogs, reloading numerous websites, scanning up and down the television and radio dials (OK, they don’t have dials any more but you know what I mean….), and putting up everything I found on Half-Bakered.
It was a lot of work, even for sitting on my butt. My head hurt by the end of it all. But the result was well worth it!
I think this scandal may end up being a watershed event in Tennessee politics. The Democrats don’t seem to realise how bad this is for them, in the PR and perception sense. It’s going to cost. I really don’t think Shelby County (home of Memphis) Democrats get it either. After all 4 of the Tennessee 7 were Memphians and one of them (State Senator Kathryn Bowers, D. – Corruption) is the Chair of the Shelby County Democratic Party.
It’s also going to hurt US Represenatative Harold Ford, Jr. All claims from him otherwise. He can spin it all he wants but I’m pretty sure folks from Say Uncle’s neck of the woods still have painful memories of his father’s misadventures with Butcher Bank. With John and, last week, cousin Melvin (I’ll post that sad tale Sunday.), it just makes family-conscious Tennesseans leery.
Anyway, if you haven’t got caught up with the Tennessee Waltz scandal, try my post and all the many, many links and substories in it. It was one heckuva day.
