Some of the antics defy belief, but happened!
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Before concluding her recent talk at Smith College, syndicated columnist Molly Ivins said she felt obligated to say something nice about President George W. Bush.
"He's not as bad as Mike Martin," she said.
With that, Ivins, who has made a tidy career out of the foibles of politicians in her native Texas, launched into what she said was
the true story of Martin, a representative in the 1981 Texas Legislature. As told by Ivins, Martin decided it would be a good idea to pay his cousin to shoot him in the arm, allowing him to score political points by claiming he was targeted by assassins from a cult of satanic communists. The plan unraveled when the cousin got drunk and spilled the beans.
"Texas has a law on the books making it illegal to pay someone to shoot you, so Rep. Martin became a wanted man," she said. The Texas Rangers (the real ones, not the former Bush-owned baseball team) began to scour the state for the fugitive politician, finding him three weeks later in his mother's house. When authorities executed a search warrant, they found Martin hiding in a stereo cabinet.
"And why was the representative discovered hiding in a stereo cabinet? Because he always did want to be the Speaker," she said. |
