#TXLEGE: Depressing

"Jesus wept."
John 11:35

We discussed this morning's Trib event with Craig Goldman and Celia Israel yesterday.  Yeah, we didn't go.  We did watch online. It was a great reminder of the ongoing institutional wretchedness...otherwise known as the Texas house.

The top line takeaway is easy: The majority party in the Texas house continues to suck.  The opposition party, however, continues to suck even more.  Thus, something close to the staus quo is likely to continue.

In a competition between D-minus and F, D-minus will continue to win by default.



It's difficult to oversell just how vacuous Craig Goldman was this morning. He's still drinking the Kool-aid from last session. "Transformational education reform" or some such nonsense.

For everything that could be said about Craig Goldman, however, all you have to know is that he praised "the leadership of...Speaker Bonnen."

He actually said it.

Yet, Celia Israel didn't call Goldman out.

[Note: Evan Smith didn't call Goldman out either.  But we can let that one slide.  That's not necessarily the moderator's job (although it is something a good moderator would do).  It is, however, the opposition party's job.]

Think about that: A member of the majority party praised a presiding officer who's being forced out because of corruption.  Furthermore, he did so while the campaign chief for the opposition party was literally sitting next to him.  Yet, that opposition party campaign chief didn't think such comments from the member of the majority party were noteworthy.

That, right there, tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about Celia Israel's political competence.

Then again, what would you expect from a political party that was too stupid to figure out the guy to whom they just lost was a slumlord?!?

Suffice to say, putting Jim Murphy in charge of cleaning up this Teacher Retirement system mess didn't come up.

Bottom Line: For as much material as the Texas GOP seems determined to give them, the Texas Democrats ongoing failure to exploit it remains a sight.