Wednesday, August 16, 2006

I May Be Stuffy, but I Was Embarrassed by This

The NCSL presented Tennessee Speaker of the House Jimmy Naifeh with an "Excellence in State Legislative Leadership Award today. In presenting the award, Representative Lois DeBerry praised Naifeh effusively, working in quotes from W.E.B. DuBois and Winston Churchill.

In response, Naifeh told the crowd that he was "glad that Lois didn't quote any of my quotes," said that the recent special session on ethics "couldn't have been worse," and thanked his family for making sacrifices so that he could be a legislator (not mentioning that his wife's sacrifice involved becoming a lobbyist.

At that point, Naifeh decided to brag on the diversity of Tennessee House leadership, saying that at one time the leadership team included a Lebanese-American, a "Jewish boy," an African-American, and (in what he said were the words of DeBerry) "a mean a-- white boy."

How very classy.

3 Comments:

Blogger Rob Huddleston said...

MCO -

Oh, the pride that I feel in admitting that Jimmy Naifeh is the face of our Tennessee General Assembly!

A friend of mine who, much to his chagrin, had to have his picture taken with Naifeh on Capitol Hill swears to this day that he smelled sulpher and brimstone while standing next to Naifeh while the photographer readied his camera.

I'm not saying that Naifeh is pure evil or anything, but some times he makes it a difficult argument...

Cheers,

Rob

3:48 AM  
Blogger John H said...

MCO - you have to admit..a person really can't make this stuff up, but it could be a great sit-com - The Lois and Jimmy show...

6:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Excellence in State Legislative Leadership"
And rightfully so. If Jimmy had his way the rest of the legislature could go home.

Such fine excellent leadership qualities.
Misrepresenting vote counts, even making them up.
Ignoring parliamentary procedure.
Making up rules to his benefit.

Why, without his "excellent" leadership maybe the rest of the state would have some representation.

Pardon me while I puke.

10:03 AM  

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