ustxtxb_obs_1997_05_23_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

At times, that policy is better suited to the camera than to the courtroom. During the Tilton litigation, Morales released a videotape deposition of the preacher to the media, even though his assistant had agreed to not to release it. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued a public reprimand of Morales, saying, “By his conduct in this case, he has dishonored his lawyers, his office, his profession, the courts, and the citizens of the state of Texas, who he was elected to represent.” He ordered Morales to personally sign every agreement made by any of his assistants in the Western District for one year. BOYS’ GAMES AND GAMEBOYS “Politicians make good company for a while.” Garry Wills once wrote, “…But they soon exhaust their favorite subject, themselves…. There is a kind of noble discipline in politicians, in persons prepared to devote a lifetime to discourse on a single subject, over and over, with anyone who will listen, anywhere.” With this in mind, you could distinguish among politicians by separating the elaborators from the outlinersthink of Bill Clinton’s emotional narratives versus Bob Dole’s Cliff Notes life story. Dan Morales is of the second type: if you’ve read anything about him in the past, then listening to him talk is like listening to an argument you’ve heard made before. The following information is provided, even if you don’t ask for it: he grew up on the West Side of San Antonio, his parents were teachers, he didn’t take school too seriously until college \(Trin IF YOU’VE READ ANYTHING ABOUT HIM IN THE PAST, THEN Law School. Spent a year at LISTENING TO HIM TALK IS LIKE Houston’s Bracewell & LISTENING TO AN ARGUMENT Patterson, felt unfulfilled, YOU’VE HEARD MADE BEFORE. missed San Antonio, went back as an assistant district attorney. Saw churchgoing grandmothers have their televisions stolen by thugs, felt system favored the thugs, ran for state representative. Knocked on 10,000 doors in poor district, won by 134 votes, served three terms with attention to criminal justice issues, ran for attorney general in 1990. Won reelection. Will run again next year. A few further details can be gleaned from his family. Morales’ parents still live in San Antonio, as do his two younger brothers Ron and Mike, musicians who run a recording studio together. “We had a great childhood,” according to Ron; the Morales family was “Beaver Cleaverish.” Dan, he says, played piano, guitar, trumpet, and violin, and was always quarterback in street football. But “he wasn’t a particularly social person; he was not attracted to crowds; he wasn’t one to seek attention,” says Ron. “He’s not real open about offering information about himself.” newspaper profile of Dan Morales last year, which his brother retells: One summer, Dan travelled across the country playing ex hibition tennis against top professionals. Though he faced some of the world’s top players, the family didn’t find out about it until after he’d competed in a few tournaments. “That’s typical of Dan; it was just out of the blue,” says Ron. The story points to Dan Morales’ tendency to keep things to himself, but more than that it suggests that if Morales has something to hide, it’s something like a sports hobby. \(After my first interview with the attorney general, during which the only personal statement he made was that he likes to waterski in the mornings, Morales maintained that he’d told me “more about myself than I’ve ever told any reporter betime: in a 1991 Dallas Morning News profile, it was a Nintendo Gameboy in his desk drawer that started beeping in the middle of the reporter’s interview. Or it could be his taste in music: after I spoke with Morales, his press secretary, Ron Dusek, sat me down and suggested some things I might like to bring out in my story, namely that Dan Morales is an independent-minded, somewhat mysterious person. \(“I bet you’d never guess what kind of music he listens to,” says Dusek, “Guess.” I shake my head. Dusek swivels his chair. “Heavy metal. I mean, would you ever guess he listens to Sports, Nintendo, Metallica: are we to infer that behind that boyish figure and boyish grin lies…a teenage boy? Not likely, but the fact that this is the gist of all Morales’ coyness underscores how hard it is to get a sense of the man. He is oddly self-conscious about the sort of image he projects to the public \(“My press secretary tells me having a stable family is probably the best thing,” says Morales, who is single. “That’s probably going to happen at some point real sense of attention to what his image might be. THROW OUT THE TRASH Morales first ran for attorney general in 1990, the year Ann 8 THE TEXAS OBSERVER MAY 23, 1997