Friday, May 23, 2003 | 6:02 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
May 25, 2003
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
IN A STATE the size of Texas, there has to be a gate somewhere.
Ever since Richard Nixon made Watergate famous, the media have been quick to tag every teapot-sized tempest with the word gate as if by doing so the public would attach a similar degree of importance to the crisis du jour. And if the media was reluctant to do so, the politicians were only too happy to oblige. Especially those who saw a political advantage.
Life has changed a bit since the Clinton years spawned Whitewatergate and Travelgate, both tempests that fizzled under the light of day and the scrutiny of those dispossessed of partisan fervor, much to the chagrin of some of Congress' most petty who sought sport in destroying the lives and reputations of innocent others.
One of the things that has changed the national appetite for partisan witch hunting has been tragedies such as 9-11 and wars such as that just finished in Iraq -- real life events where people get killed, and stakes are meaningful and permanent. Another reason people have lost interest is the knowledge that the Republicans in Congress wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on their witch hunts -- and that was at a time when we had the money.
Having said all that, I am struck by what may be far more than a mere tempest, far more than a failed real estate venture in which those being investigated were the only ones to lose money, and far more than a figment of a conspiracy theorist's imagination nurtured by a political zealot's desire to do harm to a large part of the body politic.
In George Orwell's "1984," Americans were loath to learn that a time might come when the federal government, known as Big Brother, could have transformed itself into an all-encompassing, all-knowing, all-powerful director of citizens' lives, so much so that we wouldn't be able to have a private conversation that might remotely be critical of those who held power.
Orwell scared us all, and anything that even resembled Big Brother became anathema in public life. When 1984 finally came and went, many of us were relieved that we had staved off the inevitable power grab that would have eviscerated the Constitution and made us all pawns of the elected few. The anxiety we all felt for the 20 preceding years was just another unecessary overreaction to a work of fiction. Or so we told ourselves.
It is now almost 20 years later and fears of Big Brother have not subsided. In fact, during the latest debate on the Homeland Security Department legislation, paramount among the concerns was that the apparatus being assembled to protect us from terrorism would not, could not, be used for any domestic political purposes. The lessons of Orwell were still indelible on our minds, and the fear was still real that a government left unchecked would do its worst.
That brings us back to Texas and what may be the start of the real 1984.
It is no coincidence that the Lone Star State is the place in which Big Brother rears his ugly head. Our president, George W. Bush, and his major-domo, Karl Rove, did their level best to transform that state into a place where power was centered squarely in government and away from the people, contary to all that conservatism preaches and what many Republicans practice.
Now, before you all get yourselves twisted up and turned around, I am not blaming President Bush for what I will call Texasgate. I am merely suggesting that his version of conservatism helped create an environment in which government could do no wrong because it alone knows what is best.
The story is still playing in the back pages of the newspaper, far from front and center where it should be. I am talking about those 51 Democratic Texas legislators who sneaked out of Austin in the dead of night to one of the nation's top vacation spots, Ardmore, Okla., in an effort to avoid having to deal with a redistricting plan being forced down their throats by the Republican governor and Republican Legislature and drawn up and championed by another great Texan, Republican Congressman Tom DeLay.
Whether you agree with the tactics or not, it was classic political maneuvering and one for the books. And it worked -- not only to stop the plan in its tracks but also to focus the public's attention on the underhanded nature of the plan drawn up and directed from Washington, D.C.
All was fine until Big Brother got into the act. Someone, we don't know who yet, directed the Homeland Security Department, against all the rules and perhaps even the Constitution, to involve itself in this domestic political squabble. It was so egregious that an investigation has been called for, in spite of the fact that investigations lack any political appetite for all the reasons mentioned above.
Here's the part that gets interesting. Knowing that an investigation was forthcoming, someone directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to destroy all memos, telephone records and any other information pertaining to the effort to find and apprehend the errant legislators. The questions are who? Why? And why did those in responsible positions comply?
The answers could prove very embarrassing to people very high up in the Texas and Washington administrations. And they could provide the meat to the real fears that Americans have long embraced. Big Brother may finally be here.
The irony is that Big Brother was the outgrowth of a liberal political mindset. In this case, it is a conservative philosophy that has given it life. Talk about turning the world upside down.
It is said that we shouldn't mess with Texas. DeLay believes that. Bush believes that. The Texas Department of Public Safety believes that. And an unusually quiet and not very curious Republican Congress believes that. Given all of that, one question remains.
Who will mess with the mess in Texas? Who will find that gate?
archive
