House Speaker Glen Casada (left) and his former aide Cade Cothren
House Speaker Glen Casada's wildly overpaid chief of staff, Cade Cothren, resigned Monday evening after confessing to the ultimate political crime, especially for a staffer: becoming a distraction.
Only days earlier, his boss had dismissed questions about whether he submitted false evidence to the Davidson County District Attorney's office about Justin Jones, a black activist who regularly confronted Casada on the Hill this session. Not only that, Casada also insinuated that racist text messages apparently sent by Cothren — one in which he said "black people are idiots" and another in which he calls NFL quarterback Jameis Winston a "thug n****r" — had been fabricated.
On Monday, Cothren copped to "some of" the texts and admitted that he'd done cocaine in his legislative office. In individual statements released together, Casada and Cothren doled out the bullshit sprinkled with sincerity that is the hallmark of any political scandal. Casada lamented that "politics has become a game of 'gotcha' with no thought of forgiveness and starting anew." Cothren said things like, "They are part of a personal testimony that I am privileged to share, which is not lost on me," a sort of weird confessional humblebrag. They asked that Cothren be forgiven and appeared intent on leaving it at that.
Come Monday evening, though, a new report from The Tennessean revealed more text messages, this time of the sexually explicit sort. A quick summary from the daily:
Cothren’s explicit text messages include:
- soliciting oral sex and naked photos from an intern;
- suggesting he would make sexual advances toward another intern;
- seeking sex with a lobbyist;
- referring to another woman as a “cunt”; and
- calling Metro police officers who gave him parking tickets “rent a cop cocksuckers.”
The paper reports that in one text exchange from August 2016, Cothren said, “Just so y’all know, I did fuck [a woman] in the bathroom at party fowl. Will send pictures later.” To which Casada responded: “Only gone for 60 seconds,” and, “R u a minute man????;)” Cothren replied: “Yes, I take after you. Like father like son.” Casada responded again: “Lolol! If I’m happy, then all is good!!!!!” In another exchange, Casada commented on a photograph of a woman Cothren had sent to him: "Can I just touch????"
Though Casada was a participant in some of the exchanges, that was it for Cothren.
"I think it was just a distraction," Cothren told the paper, confirming his resignation.
Totally, bro.
"At this point, the best thing for me to do is step down so House and Senate Republicans can continue focusing on those things that make Tennessee the best state in the entire nation," he said later in a written statement.
It's interesting to note here that being racist and generally acting like a sexist pig was apparently not too much of a distraction from Cothren's work advancing the Republican agenda at the statehouse. Nor was it too difficult for Casada to carry on doing his work as a leading Republican and a "proud Christian family man" while also joking with his aide about quickies in a hot-chicken joint's bathroom and objectifying women. Seeing those things published in the newspaper and broadcast on television, though, that can't go on too long.
It was unseemly to watch Cothren use his apparent substance abuse problem as a smokescreen to obfuscate a more direct discussion of his apparent racism. Similarly, Casada's insinuation — and the direct assertions of other Republican aides — that Cothren's racist text messages were fake would be embarrassing now to people who had any shame, but one assumes apologies are not forthcoming.
Cothren is gone now. But Casada remains — as of this writing anyway — one of the most powerful elected officials in the state. So now is as good a time as any to skim his résumé.
This is a guy who said in 2015 that settled Syrian refugees living in Tennessee should be rounded up and detained; this is a man who defended former Rep. Jeremy Durham despite a mountain of sexual harassment and misconduct allegations and stood by Rep. David Byrd despite an actual recording of Byrd apologizing to one of several women who have accused him of sexually abusing them while he was their high school basketball coach. Casada — the man who just can't understand why you won't be more gracious to his staffer who did hard drugs in the Capitol and went on to make a six-figure salary funded by the taxpayers — also supported mandatory drug testing for some welfare applicants. Moreover, consider the fact that Casada knew about all these sleazy chats he'd had with his top aide when he penned — or was it Cade who actually wrote this? — an op-ed for The Tennessean that painted Republicans as the victims of a malicious news media irresponsibly tarring them with sexual misconduct allegations.
You start to wonder about a guy, that's all.
