Posted by
REDSTATE RAMBLER on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 1:28:13 PM
I am a football nut. I have this strange habit in looking at things that go on and putting them into football terms. What is going on in the Tennessee House is a doozy of a football story.
You start out with a coach. The coach's job is to get everyone organized and into place to run the plays that are called. Coaches spend long hard hours finding out about their team. Their strengths and their weaknesses. They formulate game plans around their teams strength. They work hard to strengthen their weaknesses. They condition their players to get ready for the game. They run drill after drill, practice after practice, play after play. Each person who is on the field knows their role on each and every play.
Finally, the day of the big game. Its a tie ball game and our team has the ball and are taking the ball in for the score. The coach calls a keeper to the right. As the ball is snapped, one of the players on the right side of our line decides he doesn't want to run the ball to the right side. He want's to run left. So, he runs up to his Quarterback, strips the ball out of his hand and runs left, in spite of the fact that all of his team is running the play to the right.
He has no blockers in front of him. He scores anyways! How did he score? Turns out he had been secretly meeting up with the opposing team and the opposing team agreed to let him be the one who scored. They made no effort to tackle the player and even, celebrated the fact that he scored the go ahead TD on them.
The coach is mad as hell! The players teammates are mad as hell, even though he scored and they had the lead. That player is taken off the field by the coach. By doing so, it allowed the other team to tie the game back up.
It could never happen you say?
Robin Smith is the Coach, or in this case, the Chairwoman of the Tennessee GOP, who has worked tirelessly over the past two years to wrestle control of both state houses away from the democrats (for the first time since reconstruction).
The Quarterback, who should have scored on the keeper, was Jason Mumpower, Republican leader of the state house.
The player who stole the ball from his own quarterback is Kent Williams, a former Republican who was ousted (kicked off the team) by the Tennessee GOP yesterday.
The "score" is the position of Speaker of the Tennessee House.
The defenders, the state democrats who elected Williams to the post of speaker through a secret meeting they had with Williams in his restaurant.
Republicans held a 50-49 majority on Sunday. After stripping Williams of his Republican affiliation, the state house now rests at a 49-49-1 split.
Williams is saddened that he was kicked off the team and wonders what our problem is. He refuses to acknowledge that he has alienated his former team for his own personal glory. He wont even discuss the fact that he has violated every trust his teammates had in him.
Do you want this guy on your team?