Las Manitas Had City Hall by the Huevos?

It's hard to know what to make of Brewster McCracken's kinda-culpa to Jeff Ward on KLBJ this morning regarding Las Manitas. If you missed it, the audio is here.

Basically, Brewster says the $750,000 forgivable loan to Las Mas had fuck all to do with the eatery's iconicness but was given as the building up the block from Las Manitas – which the Perez sisters own – had a right-of-way on an alley the $200 million Marriott needed for construction – an "absolute trump cards to kill the hotel deal," says McCracken.

As a commenter says, "Why go to all of the trouble of putting lipstick on the pig if you're gonna immediately turn around and claim 'We had no choice – those educated chicanas held us up!" Especially after McCracken voted for it. When crouched in purely economic terms, the penny-ante arguing over a $750,000 grant to expedite a project bringing $7 million in annual tax revenue sounds like a no-brainer – so why not sell it that way from the outset, as "both or neither," which Brewster does here?

So confused …