“Doesn’t Play Well With Others”
A few days ago, after Mayor White pitched a fit over the distribution of some relief supplies, I expressed some concern over Mayor White’s tendency to make harsh demands and slam people whom he felt didn’t meet his expectations:
I am rather disturbed about the Mayor’s tendency to demand other people make heads roll. In general, such behavior tends to cause folks you may need in the very near future to make notes about you like, “Doesn’t play well with others.” And it also sets you up for reciprocal demands. Bill might not want to lash out so much at perceived errors.
Lo and behold, his behavior that morning has come home to roost, and Governor Perry has stepped in to apologize on behalf of Texas. From Ted Olberg of ABC 13:
In storms like this, FEMA sends crews from all over the country to help manage the disaster. One of those crews came from Georgia to dispatch trucks of food and ice to points of distribution, or PODs. Mayor White thought they weren’t getting the job done and the governor of Georgia got offended when White told them so.
Last Tuesday morning, Mayor White visited the thousands of people in line at the TSU POD. All the supplies had been sitting overnight at Reliant Stadium. The mayor wasn’t happy.
“That is not going to happen again,” said Mayor White to the media in the days after the storm.
What he didn’t say from that podium is that before the trucks started rolling, some tough words rolled off his tongue. According to a city witness, he told some FEMA workers from Georgia dispatching trucks, to “Get those (expletive) trucks moving” and “You better get your (expletive) act together.”
Channel 13 keeps trying to carry the Mayor’s water on this one, saying, “We’re not proud of it and it doesn’t sound real nice, but when there’s no AC, heated language is a little understandable, maybe even coming from our Mayor White.” Then there’s this humdinger:
Apparently, those Georgia workers’ feelings bruise easier than a Georgia peach. They tattled on our mayor and the Georgia governor wrote Texas Governor Rick Perry a letter saying, “I would not tolerate the profane berating of Texas or Georgia volunteers here…and I trust that you do not either.”
If not for the involvement of two governors, this sure would seem like a little dealAnd it does seem like a little deal to the guy who supervises the Georgia workers. He told me on Tuesday that they’ve been yelled at by a lot more people than Mayor White and they understand how he lost his cool.
Well, I suspect the reason he told you that, Ted, is that he’s got a hell of a lot more class than the Mayor showed that morning.
The Chronicle, long derided as “Ms. White,” seems a bit disenchanted in her spouse, noting that while the supervisor may be a guy, the Georgia workers the Mayor was so kindly remonstrating with were not.
Gov. Rick Perry yesterday asked his staff to investigate comments White made to two Georgia Forestry Commission employees who came to Houston to help manage the distribution of federal and state supplies to area residents hit hard by Hurricane Ike. Perdue said in a letter to Perry that White had “verbally and profanely abused” the women.
A witness said White told the women, “You need to be getting these (expletive) trucks out of here.” The mayor then began arguing with a Harris County sheriff’s deputy over whether trucks full of Federal Emergency Management Agency supplies had been delivered to a distribution site, the witness said. White told the deputy he had just been to the site and about 3,000 people were waiting for supplies.
White went on to say that if nothing was delivered soon, they were ”about to be in a (expletive) riot,” the witness said.
I’m sure that they now have a really positive view of Texas men. And of General Patton, whom Bill so kindly compares himself to:
“I did use words that I have never used in the Sunday school class I teach, but which were closer to the vocabulary General Patton used when he was trying to keep his army moving,”
As salty as he was towards the press and his own soldiers, I strongly suspect that General Patton would have shot any officer who directed intemperate language like that towards ladies.
Was he ejected, or not?
In a letter sent Friday to Perry, but not White, the Georgia governor [Perdue] described a confrontation last Tuesday that has become a hot topic of conversation in local law enforcement and Republican political circles.
”Apparently, Mayor White had to be escorted from the scene by the Incident Commander,” Perdue wrote.
White wrote in his response that he was not “escorted from the site” but “drove with one convoy of trucks to a site where about 100 volunteers and many thousands of people had been waiting in line.”
Well, at least the Chronicle manages to make it look like it’s all just partisan sniping, by working in “Republican political circles” right after “local law enforcement.” As if it doesn’t matter whether your temper tantrums become local gossip as long as it can be passed off as partisan local gossip.
Another interesting note about the ABC 13 piece: the name that doesn’t show up in here (”right before the trucks got rolling”) is that of County Judge Emmett. When the going got tough, Mayor White pitched a fit. Judge Emmett sat down at a table with a notepad and pen, and started fixing the problem.
And Governor Perry picked up the bruised peaches for Mayor White. Gee, I wonder if it’s time for a game of “Name that Party“? The Chronicle started it…