7/24/00 10:35 a.m.
Don't Mess with Texas, Al
The tar-and-feathers option.

By William Murchison, a seventh generation Texan and columnist for Creators Syndicate.

ell, sir, looks like a little tar might come in handy right soon. Bag of feathers, too.

Least that's what Jake here has been saying since Mr. Al Gore invaded San Antonio the other day, lambasting the fair state of Texas. Jake figures Mr. Al, sooner or later, is going to find his way back to Texas, and we might just want to throw him a little celebration as he crosses over the state line.

Funny. Folks from Tennessee used to enjoy coming to Texas — Davy Crockett and all the rest. Might not have had a state of our own if they'd kept home, minding their business. That's what makes all this Texas-bashing so odd.

To hear Al talk, we can't do anything right here in Texas. Nothing. Can't keep the environment clean. Can't operate a decent public-school system. Can't give folks a fair trial. Can't do much of anything, I guess, except stand there and drool. What a hell hole, you've got to figure. How come anybody would live around here?

Strange thing is, plenty of people do — around 20 million of them, and more keep coming, one way or another. Second strange thing: All these folks who cough themselves silly in the dirty air, can't read, can't spell, can't afford health care, can't get a fair trial — they helped Gov. Bush, running for re-election, wallop a Democrat who'd been in statewide office since Santa Anna, or maybe a tad longer.

We looking at the same state? Al keeps making all those charges about us. (Hold on there, Jake; I'm doing the talking; just go back to stirring that tar, hear?)

I was saying, Al keeps making all those charges. Came down to San Antonio the other day, wearing black cowboy boots; proceeded to hold what one paper described as "a mini-town hall meeting,'' where he said kids' health is suffering because Bush cut taxes instead of expanding medical programs.

The way some of us see it, Al hopes to make Texas look as bad as George W.'s dad made Massachusetts look back in '88, when he was running against Dukakis.

(You, Slim — now just simmer down. I don't like comparing Texas to Kennedy-land U.S.A. any better than you do.)

Now when some guy from the outside comes along, cussing and dis-cussing our state, seems to me you can respond in one of several ways.

You can tell the guy he's full of beans. That's No. 1. Like when, down in San Antonio, Al gets to talking about how we've got a budget shortfall that's due to tax cuts: for "the powerful interests,'' Al said. What we've actually got, our state comptroller says, is a surplus: $800 million left over even after we account for the Legislature's low guess last year as to what some health-care and criminal-justice programs would cost. Somebody like to tell me what's wrong with a surplus?

Tell you one thing that's wrong with this one as far as the Democrats are concerned. Texans don't like, and never have liked, government. That's why we let the Legislature meet just five months every two years. Last time was a year ago. When you start projecting budgets that far out, you can miss your guess. You get the feeling that the sort of folks backing Al won't be happy about Texas until our Legislature gets up to speed — starts meeting all year, every year. And even then they might not be happy.

Now the trouble with Response No. 1 is that you can end up spending all your time on defense. Al's got so much bad to say about Texas it could take all day just to count all the beans he's full of. Like on schools: Sure we've got problems — and so does New York, where composite SAT scores last year were about the same as in Texas., only I don't hear Al bashing New York for crummy schools.

Looking at this thing as pure politics is a pretty good way to look at it. You get to saying, hey — what if we just wait for Al to file off the edges of his teeth, what with all the chewing on us. You answer back, but you try not to get riled. Don't want to bash the nice folks in Tennessee. A few well-chosen words about the Clinton administration, maybe?

Then there's Response No. 2 — same one Jake and Slim are working on.. The tar bucket, you know, with maybe a rail thrown in just for good measure. Nice old-fashioned flavor to it.

Of course we'd rather not. Rather keep this thing on a high level, if you know what I mean. It does get tricky, though. Al's getting down about as low as he can. There's just so much a Texan can stand.

How's that tar coming, Jake?