Right here in Dallas, the heart of Texas, there’s some goings-on among Republicans.

Last summer, The National Center for Policy Analysis, Dallas’ most prominent conservative think tank, “erupted in personnel and management squabbles.”

Here’s the deal.

President and CEO John Goodman, who has led the center since its creation in 1983, was fired in a unanimous vote of the board of directors, according to a statement issued by the center.

At the time this happened, Goodman announced …..

“It is a coup,” Goodman said. “There’s a huge disagreement about the management of the organization, with board members threatening to sue other board members, and threatening to sue me.

“This is terrible,” he added. “Dallas needs a think tank. But Dallas is proving that it’s not ready for it.”

Well, it wasn’t quite that simple.  A couple of weeks later, it was announced that Mr. Goodman had been boinking one of the employees and was also fired for breach of fiduciary duty.  He was being paid half a million dollars a year and still couldn’t afford to have his zipper welded shut.  Her name is Sherri Collins and she’s probably not who you want representing the Temple of Free Markets.

In early June, Collins, then 47, was arrested at a house in Frisco for assault and criminal mischief. According to Frisco police, Collins had assaulted a “boyfriend” (not Goodman) by trying to hit him with a fake plant and throwing things across the living room at him. It wasn’t Collins’ first brush with the law. Texas Department of Public Safety records show she had been arrested four times in North Texas between 1997 and 2009, on charges ranging from assault and theft to criminal mischief.

So who could see trouble coming with this woman?  Well, certainly not the top thinker of the Libertarian movement.

The Lovely Couple

So, if your organization is trying to recover from a nasty little squalid office love affair and some fiduciary irresponsibility, what do you do?  You bring in intellectual gravitas.

Or not.

Tea party favorite Allen B. West was named Friday to be the new CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas think tank that has focused on market-based solutions for health care and tax and fiscal policy.

Oh hell, yes.

Allen West.  Head of a think tank.  Will the ironies ever cease?

By the way, Dallas has a Democratic mayor and a Democratic County Judge.  Allen West ain’t getting no damn key to the city!

Thanks to Jean and David for the heads up.