RIP Eddie Bernice Johnson

Or "Peanut Butter and Johnson" as I called the South Dallas AND South Dallas suburbs Congresscritter, who only visited the burbs once in 9 years, and that for a Recovery Act highway project in Cedar Hill. Here's the Trib's obit.

And, my takedown follows.

The biggie? Her running flak for John Wiley Price and Friends of JWP over essentially trying to do a shakedown of Richard Allen over the Dallas Inland Port on I-20 in the late 2000-aughts. The reporting on that, per link in my blog, was some of Jim Schutze's best.

No. 2? Nepotism, and pretty blatant, with Congressional Black Caucus Foundation scholarships.

No. 3? Per the opening graf, her eventual, 2009, discovery that her district included the Best Southwest suburbs. (Those four suburbs made up one-fourth of the district's population. Maybe she thought they were too White, to be blunt? Reality is Lancaster turned majority-Black at or just before I moved there, DeSoto was majority-minority when I moved and majority-Black by 2009, and Cedar Hill was majority-minority by 2009. Reality is, on this, that contra Gromer Jeffers below, little of the bacon she brought home for Dallas went to the Best Southwest burbs; that 2009 "discovery" was to be at a ribbon-cutting for a highway project that was an Obama America Recovery Act project, not her own doing.)

No. 4? Voted for the Iraq War and continued to support it years later.

That said, as noted here, her "throw weight" in the House was long on the weak side, contra the Trib obit. (Also, the Trib obit mentions the bare bones of the scholarship deal, but nothing about the Inland Port.)

She was pretty much wasted space. (I'm sure the likes of Kuff would have a different take.)

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Justin Miller at the Texas Observer goes stanning for her in his obit.

First, the "EBJ"? Never thought of it before, but surely consciously riffing on "LBJ"?

Second, he salutes her hand-picking her successor. Justin, another phrase for that is "machine politics." Given the scholarship nepotism issue, it's not surprising, but it is bad optics. He mentions some shortcomings, but none by name, while referencing Gromer Jeffers' obit in the Snooze. Problem? Jeffers, while mentioning the scholarship issue, mentions none of the others. Since the Snooze still bats somewhat from the right, Gromer overlooking the Iraq war might be acceptable; Justin doing so by his silence is not. Not covering the Dallas Inland Port? Not acceptable from Gromer, who, even if he didn't want to write about it, knows it. Also, Gromer doesn't note what I observed from personal experience, that she often seemed to see her district as only including South Dallas itself. And, although she might have gotten sideways with Our Man Downtown more than once, nonetheless, she still ran flak for him and his Friends of JWP on the Dallas Inland Port — which the Snooze in general covered badly when it covered it at all.

Interesting, Jim Schutze couldn't take time at his Mike Miles-fellating Substack to write about EBJ.

More interesting, and showing its slippage on anything more than blogging-brief hard level news since (rightfully) booting Schutze to the curb? The Dallas Observer has bupkis. You can still have Simone Carter come up to the Red on PRO Gainesville, but not write up EBJ's death? OK.

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Side note: EBJ's family is suing Baylor Scott & White over her death. Sounds like even being semi-rich and semi-famous can't get you decent health care in Merikkka.