I present to you, the latest installment of Masterpiece Ridiculous Theatre featuring Representative Johnny Shaw. (D-amn near brilliant)
Scene II: WTJS Studios, May 23rd, 6:40 am. The Question: Do you support spending the taxpayers dollars on the Governor’s Mansion?
Shaw: “You know, that’s been an issue, well let’s put it this way, how many people have you heard say that President Bush shouldn’t have went to war? And how many dollars have we spending for that. Now to say that would not be fair for me because I don’t know weather he should have gone to war or not. I don’t know why the Governor built the mansion. I don’t know why the first lady and the governor used some tax dollars or not. But I do know that I didn’t vote for it and I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Slater: Well here’s an opportunity for you to vote against it, no?
Shaw: No no, uh no, ut-uh, that was not an opportunity for me to vote against that.
Slater: There was another bill in the last few days…which would have taken the money away from the governor’s mansion, how did you vote on that bill.
Shaw: No no, I don’t even remember what bill it was, I can’t tell you because I don’t remember, but I can tell you that I never vote with Stacey Campfield because he never makes any sense.
FLASHBACK to House Floor, March 19, 2008, Representative Stacey Campfield proposed this bill (HB3023) that would, among other things, put a cap on spending for the expansion of Bredesen’s Boondoggle at the appraised value of the mansion, which is about $1 million (As opposed to $12.8 million). And to make the bill almost impossible to vote against, it would also take the money currently allotted for the party bunker (and the $14,436 for dimmer switches) and instead put the money to pay for more beds to house child predators in the slammer (Go ahead…I DARE you to vote against it now!)
Like an American soldier rising from the rubble to defeat the insurgency in Falafelland (While we’re using Iraq war references), Rep. Johnny Shaw rose to the challenge. In a flash of unparalleled brilliance, Shaw responded to this proposal with the gem, “I don’t know why we want to build prison rather than fix the governor’s mansion.” Which to me seems like a peculiar thing to say.
After missing a few scheduled appointments on the program, Representative Shaw finally answered my question regarding that statement. His first response, “I stick to that statement, because a guy like Tracey (sic) Campfield don’t think about anything but locking people up. That’s all he ever thinks about.”
I’ve never met Stacey Campfield’s evil twin Tracey, but he must be a real bummer to hang around if all he thinks about is locking people up. Rep. Shaw followed it up with this (Not sure if he’s talking about Tracey or Stacey), ”Mr. Campfield don’t know what he wants…I’ve worked with Stacey Campfield everyday and he doesn’t know what he wants.”
BACK TO THE WTJS STUDIOS, A SlaterRaider called Rep. Shaw out on the fact that he can’t stop talking about Rep. Campfield even though he has nothing to do with Shaw’s support of the $20 million governor’s mansion. More madness ensues as Shaw pulls out the semantics card and runs away in a cloud of smoke. The audio of this scene can be heard here.
