From one Fief to Another
Gov.-elect Phil Bredesen has picked Gerald Nicely, the former head of Nashville's Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency, to head the much-maligned Tennessee Department of Transportation (a/k/a the Department of Asphalt).

The Tennessean reports: The agency had become a "fiefdom" unresponsive to Tennesseans, he said. Nicely pledged to change that.

How ironic. Nicely knows a thing or two about fiefdoms. Under his rule, MDHA was a fiefdom unresponsive to Nashvillians (unless the Nashvillians in question were powerful, connected local developers).