Homina homina homina homina

From The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune:

Confounding political pundits and a slew of rivals who had become confident of his defeat, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, neatly sidestepped a roiling federal corruption probe to win re-election on Saturday to his ninth term in Congress.

Guilty pleas by aides and associates who admitted to bribing the congressman and the revelation in court documents that FBI agents had found $90,000 in marked bills stuffed into Jefferson's freezer had put the scent of blood in political waters.

A field of a dozen candidates began circling Jefferson in the primary. Hefinished first, but with only 30 percent of the vote, inspiring conjecture that his performance amounted to repudiation of an incumbent and that he would surely lose the runoff against state Rep. Karen Carter, D-New Orleans.

Instead, Jefferson, 59, scored a dramatic upset by racking up huge pluralities in African African-dominated precincts in Orleans, and winning outright in Jefferson Parish, where Sheriff Harry Lee had spent his campaign.The final margin for Jefferson in Jefferson Parish was 71% to 29% -- a margin that can be attributed to Sheriff Lee's furious political assault in the closing days of the campaign.

Lee not only endorsed to Jefferson, but in the final days, urged Jefferson Parish residents to stay home and not vote. The final tally shows that while 28% of registered voters cast ballots in the primary, only 15% voted Saturday.

Jefferson's victory was even more confounding because the Second Congressional District race was missing all the advantages that usually come with incumbency. Carter had the edge in funding raising, including from business interests that had backed Jefferson in the past. Most of the high-profile endorsements -- including those by two former Louisiana senators -- went to her, as well.

Un(expletive deleted)believable.

But not really. I was thinking like a Nebraskan, there, for a minute. That's kind of like trying to understand Iraqi insurgents by thinking like a Yale man.

Here's what I say: BRING THE TROOPS HOME FROM IRAQ! If W. wants to do some "nation building," take those 140,000 personnel, and all the armor, and all the political consultants, and all the civil-engineering teams (and all those billions of federal dollars for "helping children and building schools") and send them to Louisiana.

Of course, "nation building" may be just as futile in Louisiana as it has been in Iraq, and "the transformative power of democracy" probably will find itself "transformed" into foil-wrapped bundles of Franklins and Jeffersons in somebody's freezer (probably Jefferson's).

But at least the government of the United States futilely would be trying to instill American values into actual American citizens, and Louisiana schoolchildren would be blissfully ignorant in shiny new schools, as opposed to crumbling dungheaps of peeling paint and dripping ceilings.

I even have a spiffy operational name for the U.S. invasion of the Bayou State. Call it "Operation Reconstruction Resumed: Trying to Get It Right This Time."