We see all: By the time you read this, the Great Trinity Toll Road Debate of 2007, Leppert vs. Hunt in a tag-team smack-down cage match, will be over. Unfortunately, Dallas Observer deadlines, which oddly coincide with happy hour at neighboring bars, prevent us from reporting on the outcome of Tuesday night's debate. We'll have plenty to say about it on the paper's blog Unfair Park, but that won't help Buzz's regular readers, whom we're told consist chiefly of homeless people who pause to peruse a line or two while stuffing copies of the paper into their shoes to plug holes in their soles.
We're OK with that, though. Mother Buzz always said if you can't be good, be useful, so with that in mind, we're going to go ahead and predict the outcome of the debate for the Luddites and connoisseurs of cheap wine who won't be able to get the news fresh. Don't worry, everything here will likely be at least as accurate, balanced and informative as what you might read in a daily newspaper.
Mayor Tom Leppert, arguing on behalf of the "screw the promises we made and all you tree-hugging hippies, we're buildin' a big honkin' freeway in the park" camp, whose members, sources tell us, include several fugitive war criminals and drug dealers, will wear a navy suit—possibly pinstriped—a white dress shirt and red tie. He might wear an American flag lapel pin. This will be an important political sign: If he's wearing a pin, he's touting his patriotism to cover up the fact that half of what he's saying is lies or obfuscations. If he's not wearing a pin, the other half is.
Council member Angela Hunt, representing the wisdom, integrity and righteousness of the voters striving valiantly to save a priceless natural resource from the machinations of rapacious property developers, will be both polite and cheerful as she counters Leppert's sophistry, despite nagging pain from the wound she received in action for which she received the Silver Star for valor.
They'll both toss out a bunch of numbers and stuff...you know the usual blah blah this and blah blah that.
There, that looks like a pretty fair prediction of the night's festivities. We can't predict who will actually win the debate, of course, because that would display bias on our part. We will predict that you will hear Leppert say some variation of the phrase "balanced vision plan"—which roughly translated means "we get the groceries, you get the sack they came in"—47 times. Oh, now that sounds like a great theme for a drinking game. He says it. You take a shot. Gotta remember to get some cheap wine.
