Notice anything similar about this Houston Press article from last week and this column in today's Chron by their new hotshot Rick Casey? Me too. I can think of three possible explanations: Casey didn't read Tim Fleck's story and found out about Rep. Nixon and his associated sleaziness on his own; Casey did read Fleck's story and didn't bother to credit him with printing it first; Casey wrote this story last week and had other columns in the pipeline before this one.

My guess some variation on the latter. Since both pieces are so similar, they're probably the result of each writer getting a call from lawyer Fred Hagans, who wanted to get the word out about how Nixon was affecting his court case. Since I'd assume that Hagans would call the guy at the paper with the bigger circulation first, Casey either sat on this or just took his time between writing it and printing it. Meanwhile, Hagans either called Fleck as he'd always planned to and Fleck was simply quicker off the draw, or he got impatient waiting on Casey and called Fleck out of frustration and/or spite.

Obviously, I'm just guessing. But I'll bet that if Casey hadn't read Fleck's column before his own ran, he now wishes he had. And I'll also bet that this is the subject of a future Hair Balls piece.