.

I like the Texas Observer just fine.  I do.  I’ve written for them and they’ve written about me a couple of times.  I subscribe and I also donate money to them.  I bought a Jim Hightower hat and a Molly Ivins shirt at one of their auctions, neither of which was a bargain.  I thought we had a pretty good relationship.

I have met the editor of the Texas Observer, Bob Moser, one time in passing, and he seemed like a nice guy.  He’s a good writer, and knows his way around Texas political shenanigans.  He wrote an article, and it’s a dandy, for The Nation Magazine this week.  Only problem is: he embarrassed me like the time I got the back of my dress caught in my garter belt and flashed the entire congregation of the First United Methodist Church.

To be honest, it’s nice to be quoted with the likes of Paul Krugman and Bill Hobby.  Moser quoted me and tried to nicely attributed the quote.  I appreciate the effort, but everybody at my house is laughing at me today.

“Texas is setting a new standard by setting new lows,” says East Texas blogger Susan DuQuesnay Bankston.

I am not a blogger.  It says that very clearly over there on the right.  I can’t be a blogger because I got blackballed by the Texas Progressive Alliance Blogger’s Club.  Seriously.  No, seriously.  They wouldn’t even tell me the secret handshake.  I couldn’t attend their secret meetings, where they traded, oh, I dunno, secrets.  One of them even publicly said, “She’s not a real blogger.”  So, there ya go.  I can’t be a blogger if I can’t get ordained.

No, seriously, they really blackballed me.  It’s a damn hoot.

And then there’s that East Texas thing.  I don’t live in East Texas.  Not that there’s anything wrong with living in East Texas – some of the finest liberals in Texas history came out of the Piney Woods.  Archer Fullingim, Bill Moyers, Ralph Yarborough, Wright Pattman, Charlie Wilson … all came from East Texas.  But, East Texas has changed.  If I lived in East Texas now, they would have strapped me to a tree nakkid, poured honey all over me and called the fire ants.  Heck, they do that to moderates in East Texas.

I live near the Brazos River bottom, closer to the Gulf Coast than to East Texas.  So, Bob, I don’t know what you can call me.   “Queen” is already taken and so is “Lady Gaga.”  I guess we’re gonna have to come up with something if I intend on continuing to be quotable, and I sure do.

Go read Bob’s story.  It’s really good.