Gen. Tata led the efforts to re-segregate Wake County schools. But now...

Gen. Tata with his pal Palin. 

Remember Brigadier Gen.Tony Tata?

He was fast friends with Sarah Palin and Michelle Rhee's second in command in D.C. who then became the superintendent who led the school re-segregation initiative in Wake County, North Carolina.

For some reason, it became trendy a few years ago, to appoint former generals and colonels as school leaders. We did it here in Chicago when Rahm Emanuel appointed Marine Col. Tim Tyrrell and paid him $180,000/year to run his mass school-closing operation. Tyrrell also was charged with selling or finding new uses for closed school buildings, a project that so far has failed miserably.

BUT BACK TO TATA...After mass protests by the NAACP and court actions, the school board finally was forced to fire Tata. But he was then appointed by Tea Party fave, Gov. Pat McCrory to head of the State Dept. of Transportation.

Col. Tyrrell resigned in January.

It was Tata’s credentials as military man that helped him land the superintendent's job and become state transportation secretary, and the retired general continues to trade on his military experience as a TV news commentator and the author of action thrillers. But it turns out, Tata’s Army career included phony court order, at least 2 affairs, according to the News&Observer.

After Tata decided in June 2008 to retire from the Army, Pentagon officials were still asking questions about a mysterious, phony court document he had given investigators in 2007. An Army probe found that Tata had committed adultery with “at least two” women during his career, court and military records show. The adultery complaint against Tata involved affairs with three women and a son born out of wedlock.

Tata resigned as Department of Transportation secretary suddenly in July, citing the needs of his family and the demands of his burgeoning side career. He said he was considering a run for Congress.

According to Army investigators rejected Tracy Tata’s complaint that her ex-husband had failed to meet his court-ordered obligation to support their daughter, based on evidence in the general’s favor -- a court order that criticized Tracy for willfully burdening Tony with medical bills that “need not have been incurred at all” because Brooke qualified for free military health care.

But this court order turned out to be a fake. Military and court officials agreed later that someone had forged the signatures of two lawyers and the Georgia judge.

It remains a mystery.

Tyrell resigned from CPS in January to pursue an unspecified "opportunity in public service."