Pull the Other One

Where's the love? Your regular Buzz correspondent travels out of town for a week's vacation, and only then Dallas decides to hold one of its most absurd political farces in the past decade.

OK, we're overstating it. The farcical comes fast and frequently from City Hall. Still, the sight of all those preachers announcing last week that they collected more than enough signatures to force an election to recall Mayor Laura Miller, but had decided in the name of love not to file or show them to anyone, was the most ridiculous performance in the past several weeks. So forgive Buzz if we take one more whack at that dead horse and offer our opinion: Those preachers, led by the Reverend S.C. Nash? They're liars, of the big fat stinkin' variety.

"Trust us," Nash told reporters. "We have the boxes."

That's great, preach. Now show us what's in the boxes.

Listen, bub, here's a simple rule news people learn early on: If someone says he has a piece of paper, a photograph or cave drawing that will prove whatever he's claiming is true but refuses to let you see it, that person is lying (ref. Joe McCarthy).

That's just an assumption, of course, but a small one--sort of like assuming the sun will rise tomorrow.

Buzz tried about a month ago to reach Nash and other leaders of the recall effort to see how it was going. Called a bunch of numbers, left messages. No one called back. Granted, Buzz is not high on anyone's call-back list, but if the recall leaders had, say, even three-quarters of the signatures then, don't you think they would have told somebody?

Now they say they have 89,000 signatures, well more than the 72,873 needed. Right. Tell it to Buzz's girlfriend, Katie Holmes.

Of course, Buzz could be wrong. But if the organizers do have the signatures, they missed a golden opportunity. A spokesman with the Texas secretary of state's office tells us that until petitions are actually filed with the government, they belong to the people collecting them. Nash and company should have offered to sell the petitions to Miller in lieu of filing them. If you're going to be accused of being a mendacious sellout, you should at least try to turn a quick buck. This is, after all, Dallas.