SLIGHTED COUNTY JUDGE DESERVES A CORRIDO OF HIS OWN

Cameron County won't forget Conrado Cantu in a hurry.

The colorful ex-sheriff has been in jail since June. According to the
official Justice Department press release, Cantu "pleaded guilty to heading
a criminal enterprise engaged in acts of extortion, drug trafficking,
obstruction of state and local law enforcement efforts, witness tampering
and bribery."

In other words, Cantu is in a corrido's worth of trouble.

Here's the one I heard, minus a few chorus repeats:

Long ago in the Valley of Texas,

Back when a little graft was no disgrace,

They had an honest sheriff to get rid of.

Conrado said, "I will take his place."

"Conrado," sang the gang, "you make us mighty glad.

Stick with us and we will turn you into

The finest sheriff the county ever had -

The finest all of Texas ever had."

But Cantu did not make a model sheriff.

He did things lawmen aren't supposed to do.

Friends said he didn't know what he was doing.

People always figured that he knew.

Full forty feds rode down the pike from Houston,

Sworn to harm Cantu for all his deeds.

They tracked him up and down the county by

The trail he left of appetite and greed.

Feds seized Cantu and threw him in with snakes.

All he got to eat was beans and bread.

He would not bow before the feds for weeks.

Then he signed each paper where they said.

"Conrado," sang the gang, "we're grievous shocked and sad.

This is not the way they should have treated

The finest sheriff the county ever had -

Much less the finest Texas ever had."

Long ago in the Valley of Texas,

Back when a little graft was no disgrace,

They had an honest sheriff to get rid of.

Conrado said, "I will take his place."

When I heard this corrido, my first reaction was how extremely unfair it is
to Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa. Hinojosa doesn't get a single
mention. His protege hogs the whole song!

Certainly Cantu never could have become sheriff - and remained sheriff -
without Hinojosa's backing. Halfway through Cantu's term, with scandals
already piled up to the ceiling, Hinojosa wrote: "In the end, Conrado Cantu
will be considered a great sheriff, not only in our county but across the
state of Texas ...."

Hinojosa even figured in an attempt to rehire Cantu, just a few days before
Cantu was arrested. "County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa said he supports
Cantu's return to county law enforcement," the newspaper reported.

How a corrido about ex-Sheriff Cantu could omit the county judge stumped me
for a long time, but I figured out a couple of reasons:

First, because history itself is unfair. It's natural for history to
remember the colorful Cantu and forget the uncolorful Hinojosa.

Second, because it takes more than just colorfulness to get into a corrido.
You have to get into big trouble first. "Do the wrong, get the song." Cantu
has met this test. Hinojosa hasn't.

My guess is that the uncolorful, trouble-eluding Judge Hinojosa will remain
unsung. Mere lapses of judgment - even lapses as calamitous as sponsoring
Cantu - will never earn him a corrido of his own or major billing in anyone
else's.

Whether they should earn him re-election is another question.

-------
Thompson lives in Palm Valley, where all public officials are above average
and you can't even get a ticket fixed.
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