There was a lot of drama and discussion at the voters' forum at CPCC last night, as well as some revelations. It was what the mainstream press calls a "lively discussion." It was what journalists who like directness and honesty more than polite metaphors call "a shit storm." People showed up and boy, were most of them pissed. And thank God, because if any group of lawmakers deserved to be subjected to vigorous questioning and criticism, it's members of the GOP majority who rammed through one disastrous law after another, as you no doubt know if you're even reading newspapers lately. Rather than recap the entire forum, which other local media have already done, let's take a look at a few revelations yours truly had during the "lively" discussions.

• Rucho is every bit as snarly, arrogant and unpleasant as his reputation and actions imply.

1. Malcolm Graham, a Democrat, is seriously incensed at being steamrolled by the Republicans - including the quasi-hijacking of Charlotte's airport by vengeful friends of airport director Jerry Orr. He's also pretty effective at summing up the situation - ""In my opinion, we as a state went 20 years backward . . .Our national brand as a state has been tarnished." So effective, in fact, I wish he had decided to run for mayor, rather than the three corporate suck-ups we're supposed to choose from.

2. Ruth Samuelson, a Republican, is either a bald-faced liar or completely clueless. The designated next House Speaker said, with a straight face, that she did not know that much of the voter suppression law passed by the General Assembly was taken practically verbatim from model laws written by ALEC, a corporate advocacy group that "furnished" GOP-controlled state legislatures with pre-written bills and heavily influenced several states' law-making bodies this year. Excuse me, but I have apolitical neighbors who know about ALEC's influence on our legislature, OK? If Samuelson is telling the truth, then she is obviously living in a bubble and isn't fit for higher office, never mind the speakership. If she boldly lied at a public forum about such an important issue, then she's, well, she's a politician, so what do you expect?

3. Beverly Earle's comments, particularly regarding the airport, made it abundantly clear that the city would be better off if it had elected her to the mayor's office in 2007 instead of handing a landslide victory to now-Governor Fratboy.

4. Bob Rucho is every bit as snarly, arrogant and unpleasant as his reputation and actions imply. Rucho is poster boy for the "My way or the highway" theory of government; a guy who can't seem to help answering questions as if the person posing them were an irritating moron. He answered a questioner who said lawmakers were taking the airport away from Charlotte, by telling the person, "Apparently you might've been reading the newspaper too many times." Yep, that's always the danger of running roughshod over an entire city: people might respond by reading researched articles filled with facts and then disagreeing with Rucho's wisdom. If only everyone could see that Dentist Bob is the only person qualified to make serious judgments about public property, this would be such an easier world for Bob Rucho to live in. Heck, it might even make him stop grimacing all the time.