The fall guy in Bredesen's Watergate is Lt. Ronnie Shirley who was previously best known for fixing a ticket of then Deputy Governor Dave Cooley. Brad Schrade profiles Lt. Shirley today:
Long before he was accused of running unauthorized background checks on private citizens, a joke made its way around the Tennessee Highway Patrol about Ronnie Shirley.
He could parachute over the old Soviet Union, the joke went, and if you telephoned the Kremlin an hour later, Shirley would have schmoozed his way so far within the corridors of the communist state, you'd hear his West Tennessee drawl on the other end of the line.
The joke illuminates a truth about Shirley, a 6-foot-4 trooper full of charm and backslapping political skill, but it also reflects a long-held belief about what it takes to get ahead in the THP: Politics and cozying up to the powerful too often determine the course of a trooper's career.
"He makes friends," said former THP Lt. Col. Steve Browder, who is from McNairy County, where Shirley grew up, and helped Shirley get hired as a trooper in the late 1980s.
"He's kind of a self-serving guy. Whoever is in charge, he will find a place at the table."
1 comment:
He's also a cheater on his wife
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