Writer Matt Pulle, a regular contributor to Texas Watchdog, has a captivating piece on the lawsuit against Southern Methodist University brought by former residents of a Dallas condo complex where President George W. Bush's library is to be erected:

The lawsuit features two plaintiffs, attorney Gary Vodicka and dentist Robert Tafel, who, though unyielding, do not appear to be acting out of any lofty political principle—no hot stick in the eye for an unpopular ex-president. Their complaint is more pragmatic. They allege that as former residents of what was once the 350-unit University Gardens Condominiums (where Davenport's mother also lived), they were subjected to a protracted scorched-earth strategy orchestrated by the university to defraud them of their homes.

Pulle examines the residents' allegations and the sequence of events in the school's bid for the library and plan to buy out the condo owners. He also details the school's well-placed backers --- including Dick Cheney and Laura Bush --- and weaves in darker chapters in the school's history and its reasons for bringing the library to the Dallas campus:

For SMU, a university that lacks a stellar academic reputation outside of Texas, the presidential center could raise its national profile for generations. The library would be ground zero for any historian wanting to learn more about the seminal events that highlighted, if not plagued, Bush's presidency. And those historians won't care one bit about how that library came into being.

This property-rights saga has true Texas features: a football scandal and the son of an oilman. Perhaps less anticipated in the tale is the writer's mention of "the skin of a slaughtered lamb."

Do read the whole article if you can, either at the Dallas Observer or Houston Press, which are sister publications within Village Voice Media.