With all of the very real and completely understandable fear about what happens next to our country with an infantile narcissist as president, it did my heart good to see an old-timey, Southern-politics-at-its-finest political scandal involving sex, liquor and a wad of cash.
Gerald Greene, the Republican state representative from Cuthbert, got shot in the leg while doing something on the seedy side of Columbus, possibly after being held up at gunpoint, with his car parked behind a sex toy store. He got help from the owner of his regular liquor store, had a few thousand dollars in cash in his pocket for “storm relief” and the only store between his sex toy store and his favorite liquor store is a strip club. God bless America!
To his credit, what little research I was able to do led me to think that Rep. Greene isn’t a bad guy. He’s not a moralizer—unfortunately, because that would be the cherry on top of an already-delicious sundae—at least not in the mode of other red-nosed, hypocritical Southern politicians of his political persuasion. One of his main causes seems to be securing pensions for firemen, and it’s impossible not to admire that.
On the other hand, it’s equally impossible not to write about a politician getting shot when his car is parked behind a store where they still have “video booths.” I didn’t even know those things existed this side of 1968. The thousands of dollars in cash for disaster relief may actually be for disaster relief. (Although Athens only got enough snow to make a snow infant, other parts of the state were hurt by recent rain and tornadoes.)
Then again, another place to which people routinely lug large wads of cash is strip clubs. Personally, I wouldn’t judge Rep. Greene if he were going to the strip club with a bunch of disaster relief cash. Those ladies may seriously need disaster relief money themselves.
My favorite tidbit of this amazing story, though, is the liquor store owner, on record, praising Rep. Greene for his good taste in high-end liquor. That’s old-school Georgia politics, baby.
I want to make it absolutely clear that I am in no way implying anything untoward about the situation, at least not any more than it already is. Nay, kudos to the man for being pretty up-front for a politician about his penchant for good booze and naked women. It could have been worse. Billy Bush could’ve been involved.
My thoughts and prayers are with Rep. Greene. The rest of my thoughts and prayers go to the person who has to clean the video booths.
Even if this is all completely above board, it’s the best political story so far of 2017.
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