Burnet, Texas, is a small town in the Texas Hill County where they take their country music seriously and their politics even more seriously.

Smokin' Johnnie B Rogers, Weighing in for the Lightweight Mental Championship

There’s a staunch Republican in Burnet named Johnnie B. Rogers, who is 60 years old and ain’t never seen nothing like all this liberalism sprouting around in his whole life, dammit.

Johnnie is tad peeved about Rush Limbaugh’s show not being broadcast 24 hours a day so on election night, Johnnie decided to take on the Lamestream Liberal Media Hisownself.

A local newspaper reporter for the Burnet Bulletin, 65 year old James Walker, had the gall to come to the Burnet Republican Headquarters to get a story for the Burnet Bulletin on election night in Burnet.  That did not sit well with Johnnie.

[Police Chief] Paul Nelson was there and said he saw the president of the local Republican group, Johnnie B. Rogers, walk outside and start throwing punches at 65-year-old local newspaper reporter James Walker.

The Burnet County sheriff, several county commissioners and other elected officials were also standing around when it happened, according to witnesses.

Now under Texas law, assaulting somebody over the age of 65 is a felony, plus it’s just bad manners.

Now comes the good part.

Steve Munisteri of Austin, state Republican chairman, said an unadjudicated felony charge would not bar Rogers from being re-elected to the party’s executive committee at the GOP’s state convention next week in Fort Worth.

Johnnie is on the state Republican executive committee.  That’s a big damn deal.  There’s only 31 men on that executive committee  in all of Texas and one of them is a damn felonious pugilist.  I gotta admit that is shocking, even to me.

But there’s more, yes there is.

Johnnie Rogers hired himself a writ twit.  The writ twit is a guy who got defeated in the primary for a judgeship.  And then it gets weird.

[Police Chief] Nelson, who was standing nearby in plain clothes with several other police officers, said he intervened. But as he was pulling Rogers away, another man – subsequently identified as Todd Gallaher, an Austin political consultant and associate of Rogers – tried to grab him from behind. Gallaher represented Rogers’ attorney and three other candidates in Burnet County and the judicial districts that encompass it.

Have mercy, there’s incest going on.  No, seriously, I think that there alone violates at least 7 laws of decency and propriety.

You know, I am not fond of political consultants, and Republican political consultants in particular.  But a Republican political consultant who would assault a police chief from behind has got to have learned that behavior from Karl Rove himself.

In the understatement of the week, the newspaper reports …

Gallaher’s actions are included in the continuing police investigation, Nelson said.

Ya think?  Ya think trying to grab the police chief from behind is gonna get you a medal?

I hate to be th eone to tell you this, but the Burnet County Republican Party is kinda considered to be the intellectual center of Texas Republicanism.

Damn, I love Texas.

Thanks to Marge and Steven for the heads-up.