SECRET MEMO
TO: Super-secret Texas
cabal to control America
(Liveright/W.W. Norton) - \"As Texas Goes...: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda\" by Gail Collins
FROM: Special agent “DFW’’
Gentlemen of Texas:
The moment we have been dreading is upon us. The Collins book is out. It’s called “As Texas Goes . . .”
Now, don’t panic. She doesn’t know everything. Remember, Gail Collins is your classic big-city-Yankee-liberal New York Times columnist. Intelligence sources suggest she may drive a Volvo, and we believe it is highly likely she drinks pinot grigio. She is trying to make the case that conservative Texas politicians are behind pretty much every significant change in American government and education over the past quarter-century or so.
To the uninformed, this accusation will feel like a stretch. What Collins does is line up all the wonderful accomplishments of George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Phil Gramm, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay — especially Phil’s financial deregulation and W.’s No Child Left Behind — and then try to connect the dots to argue in favor of a grand Texas conspiracy to subvert the national welfare. “Without much anyone noting it, Texas has taken a starring role in the twenty-first-century national political discussion,’’ Collins writes. “Texas runs everything.’’ (Her italics, hombres.)
While this is true — heh, heh — I don’t expect anyone will believe her. Remember, we have survived this kind of drive-by before. The first effete Yankee author to “discover’’ Texas was the novelist Edna Ferber, who produced the gaudy “Giant’’ all the way back in 1952. (James Dean in the movie? Remember?) Next came the New Yorker’s John Bainbridge, taking a more thoughtful approach in 1961 with “The Super Americans,’’ followed every few years by some new salad-eater who suddenly realized that Texans are as important as of course we actually are. What is most notable about these endeavors is the authors’ Saul Steinbergian view of America. All of them, Collins included, seem shocked to discover that our great country isn’t actually run by their luncheon friends and private-school buddies. Don’t these people get out?
Collins dates her discovery of Texas to the spring of 2009, making her the very worst kind of Bonnie-come-lately. When she goes off on the Bushes and Phil and Dick and Tom, you get the sense that it’s all somehow new to her. Our oppo teams are researching this now, but we suspect the only time this woman has ever left the Upper West Side is to visit girlfriends in Beverly Hills or South Beach or the Hamptons or, you know, France.
That said, here’s the meat of her argument:
1. Texans are exceedingly proud of themselves and their state. Damn right we are. Next.
2. The central tenet of Texas political philosophy is what Collins calls the “empty spaces’’ doctrine: People who live in vast open spaces, or at least believe they do, don’t need or want help from a government, federal or otherwise. We’d concede this point.
3. Rick Perry is only the latest in a long line of nitwits we have elected governor. We should probably duck this one.
4. Texas was a model for national financial deregulation beginning in the 1980s. Phil Gramm was behind it all. Yeah, so? Is it our fault Wall Street was too dim to follow Phil’s visionary blueprints?
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