Patrick escalates Alamo clash with Bush
Management of icon draws more ire from lieutenant governor
SAN ANTONIO — Hours after Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush went on national TV to warn protesters to keep their hands off the Alamo, fellow statewide-elected Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took to social media to blast Bush’s management of the San Antonio icon.
“Nobody has put the @OfficialAlamo at more risk than @georgepbush with the outrageous ‘reimagining’ plan, lousy management, lack of transparency and moving the cenotaph,” Patrick said Monday on Twitter.
That post came about four hours after Bush went on the Fox News Channel to say the state has responded to “elevated threats from antifa” with more guards to protect the Alamo. Downtown has seen nearly nightly protests calling out police brutality since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis three weeks ago.
“We responded in kind with a show of force to send a very clear message that you don’t mess with Texas and you don’t mess with the Alamo,” Bush told “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade.
Patrick took it as an opening to once again publicly criticize Bush, who has increasingly been the target of Patrick’s jabs. Bush’s agency is responsible for overseeing the redesign of Alamo Plaza. Patrick’s antagonism toward Bush has grown since an October article in the National Review, a conservative publication, in which Bush is discussed as being ready to run for either governor or lieutenant governor in the future.
“While he wouldn’t challenge current Gov. (Greg) Abbott or Lt.
Gov. Patrick, if an opening presents itself he would absolutely consider serving Texans in a higher role. When that moment arises, he’s ready,” Bush adviser J. R. Hernandez said, according to the article.
Abbott, Patrick and Bush are all up for re-election next in 2022.
In 2018, Bush, who turned 44 in April, won his second term running the GLO by winning 53.7 percent of the vote — the second-highest percentage among the eight statewide Republican officeholders who won re-election that year. Patrick, who turned 70 in April, won 51.3 percent of the vote in his re-election.
In March, the 184th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, Patrick faulted Bush for the $450 million restoration being “badly off track” and Patrick threatened to take the authority to manage the Alamo away from the General Land Office.
“If the General Land Office cannot handle this important job, and to date it does not appear it can, I will recommend we identify another entity to provide oversight,” Patrick said then.
A key bone of contention for critics of the Alamo Plaza redesign is the proposed moving of the sixstory monolithic Cenotaph. There has been a plan to move that monument about 500 feet south to make way for a public-private project to build a museum and convert Alamo Plaza into a more space, free of traffic and the Cenotaph.
The monument honoring the fallen Alamo defenders sits at the north end of the plaza, where it was dedicated in 1940 as part of the Texas centennial.
Design experts and scholars have long argued that the Cenotaph depicting David Crockett and other defenders carved by Italianborn sculptor Pompeo Coppini is out of scale and context with the mission-era Alamo church and Long Barrack.
It has all made Bush a target of some Alamo enthusiasts who don’t want the monument moved.
In December, Bush took to social media to blast false rumors that he was secretly wanting to build a statue of Mexican Gen. Santa Anna near the Alamo.
“The idea that I would EVER place a statue of Santa Anna at the Alamo is patently false. Enough is enough. This is an outright lie, and is quite frankly, flat out racist,” Bush said in a statement.
Bush questioned if he was targeted for the criticism because of his parents.
“One must ask themselves, why am I being accused of honoring the murderous dictator Santa Anna?” Bush wrote. “Is it because my mother (now a naturalized citizen) is from Mexico? I was born in Houston, my wife is from San Angelo,
and my boys were born — you guessed it — here in Texas.”
That triggered another rebuke from Patrick who put out a statement accusing Bush of calling everyone who disagrees with the direction of the Alamo restoration project a racist.
“Recently, the GLO Commissioner and a member of his staff have derided anyone who disagrees with the Alamo redesign as a small vocal minority who are liars and racists,” Patrick said in a written statement. “This is offensive and inaccurate. The 31 members of the Texas Senate represent over 28 million Texans. They are not a vocal minority — nor are they liars or racists.”
Bush fired back: “To twist my words and put out a statement saying that I called Honorable State Senators and anyone who opposes me racist is wrong. It is a very dangerous mistake for an elected official with his power to make.”
The Alamo has lately been at the center of concern again amid daily demonstrations following Floyd’s death. On the night of May 28, the Alamo Cenotaph was marked with graffiti. Then a nighttime standoff on June 2 in Alamo Plaza between protesters and police working with the Texas Department of Public Safety ended with authorities releasing tear gas and firing less-than-lethal projectiles.
The next day, the Alamo announced that “in response to recent events and in consultation with the San Antonio Police Department,” the state-owned historic site would install “new, temporary fencing” on Alamo Plaza to “remain in place as long as events indicate it is needed.”
Meanwhile, the state-owned Alamo grounds remain closed. The Alamo has not announced a date that it will reopen.