How Texans Bush-Cheney Sock it to Us - part 2
The premise of Robert Bryce's "Cronies" comes off, at first, like a conspiracy theory -- his idea that during the past half-century or more, a network of "crony" businessmen and politicians based in Texas have managed to push the state's interests to the forefront of the nation's agenda, allowing Texas to control American politics, culture and the economy. Bryce hit upon this notion while researching his previous book, "Pipe Dreams," which chronicled the rise and fall of the last Texas legend, Enron. "Enron's political power, market power, and media power were indicative of something deeper," Bryce discovered -- Texas' power.
In the most general terms, Bryce's theory holds that Texas, through its size and its geology, is an intrinsically powerful piece of land. "Texas has oil. Therefore, Texas has power." But lots of places in the world are rich in natural resources; what's special about Texas, Bryce says, is that it's rich in cronies -- businessmen and politicians who recognize the power of oil and who are willing to blur the lines between their professions in order to promote a common, Texas-oil-focused agenda.
Who are these cronies? George W. Bush, naturally, is at the top, along with everyone else in his family. There's Halliburton, of course, "with its ongoing business dealings in the Persian Gulf and its long, lucrative ties to Saddam Hussein." Then there's the Saudi royal family, whose members have long been close to the Bushes. And finally there's James Baker, the former secretary of state and secretary of the treasury. Baker is depicted as the state's über-crony, a "consigliere" to the Bushes and head of Baker Botts, the Baker family law firm that sits at the center of the Texas Republican network.
One's feeling that this constellation of cronies is the product of half-baked conspiracy theory passes quickly, however. Bryce tells his tale in a way more admiring than alarmist; he doesn't sound like a conspiracy nut, he sounds like a guy who just loves a good yarn involving a lot of bad guys. The reader will have no doubt that Bryce harbors contempt for the characters he profiles, but it's a contempt leavened by good humor and even a kind of subtle respect. For instance, here's how Bryce introduces H.L. Hunt, one of the richest early Texas oilmen: "Looking back, one of the few good things that can be said about H.L. Hunt was that he was rich. Other than that, he was a son of a bitch."
Bryce's theory that Texas dominates American politics is also bolstered by the evidence. When it comes to Congress and the White House, Texas does dominate American politics. Since the New Deal, Texans have enjoyed extraordinary sway on Capitol Hill, with representatives from the state holding five of the last 16 terms for speaker of the House. And "although Texas may not own the White House outright, it definitely has a working set of keys," writes Bryce. Texans have held either the presidency or the vice presidency for 24 of the 44 years since 1960. Does anyone need to point out that the three men responsible for almost every bit of Democratic bellyaching these days -- George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay -- are all from Texas?
How Texas got to be so influential is a long and, in Bryce's telling, entertaining story, but much of the tale can safely be condensed into two words, Brown & Root. The business that became the Brown & Root construction empire began one day in the early 1900s, when Herman Brown, a young entrepreneur near Temple, Texas, inherited some dilapidated road-building equipment from a contractor who'd decided to quit the business. According to Dan Briody's account in "The Halliburton Agenda," road building in Texas was a difficult and politically charged industry at the time, with state and local officials constantly struggling over the control of projects. This turned out to be an atmosphere in which Herman Brown could thrive. Brown picked up his very first road contract on the strength of his charm, after walking into a county commissioner's office and chatting with the official in charge. "No one knows exactly what took place in that fateful meeting between Herman Brown and the county commissioner," Briody writes, "but whatever it was, it went far beyond the open and competitive bidding process that was supposed to be taking place."
Briody -- a former Red Herring reporter whose previous book, "The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group," prepared him well for his current subject -- offers a more straightforward narrative of Texas cronyism than does Bryce. Briody's tone is more serious, but paradoxically, also a little less responsible. Where Bryce might joke about the motivations of his subjects (writing that George H.W. Bush "knew exactly why America had to throw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, and it wasn't because Kuwait exported broccoli"), Briody offers bold, dark declarations on the mindset of the people he writes about. This is a problem, since he appears to rely primarily on secondary sources. Briody does not know, for instance, that to Herman Brown "it probably felt good and right" to earn his road contracts in an underhanded way. But that's what he writes.
Still, Briody's book complements Bryce's nicely, by filling out the picture of some of the key personalities at Brown & Root. In particular, we learn about the deft and brilliant Brown brothers, Herman and George, and the lessons they learned in their early days of business. The main lesson, Briody says, was the one Herman Brown picked up on his first road contract. It's a lesson that lives on at Brown & Root and its parent company Halliburton: "Politics is business, and business is politics."
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