You broke my heart! You broke my heart!

A member of the stopped clock that is the Bush Administration comes up with the correct time regarding the ongoing disaster that is New Orleans.

YOU'LL NOTE I didn't say the ongoing disaster that is post-Katrina New Orleans. At any rate, The Times-Picayune asked federal recovery czar Douglas O'Dell what time it was, and he said it's late.

Late, indeed:

On one of his frequent visits to New Orleans, federal recovery coordinator Douglas O'Dell delivered a bruising critique of the Nagin administration on Thursday, saying "there is growing frustration" in Washington with the speed, efficiency and competence of City Hall's efforts to manage the local recovery after Hurricane Katrina.

O'Dell, who consults with dozens of federal, state and local agencies and troubleshoots regulatory logjams, said Mayor Ray Nagin's recovery director, Ed Blakely, often does not return his calls and seems to be operating under the premise -- erroneous, O'Dell thinks -- that a new presidential administration next year "will reload the cannon and start shooting money down here."

O'Dell's critique, developed over several interviews, came as The Times-Picayune accompanied him on an all-day New Orleans visit Thursday. The coordinator visits the area at least every other week to discuss a wide range of recovery issues with regional officials, his aides said.

O'Dell's most recent visit included a problem-solving technical session with local, state and federal housing officials; a discussion of education issues with state Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek; meetings with local business leaders and law enforcement officials; and consultations with Paul Rainwater, his state counterpart as director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

O'Dell praised the work of some local and state leaders, such as Pastorek, who recently unveiled a massive school reconstruction plan involving 28 new or rehabilitated schools and $685 million in hand for construction.

And he singled out for more praise Bill Chrisman, the city's new capital projects director, and Cynthia Sylvain-Lear, who oversees capital projects as the city's deputy chief administrative officer. "She has her finger on the pulse," he said.

But in several interviews, O'Dell expressed continuing frustration with Blakely, an urban planning professor from Australia who once served as deputy mayor of Oakland, Calif.

He said Blakely is often absent and unavailable and leads an office that produces "ethereal visions" of recovery that cannot be financed with federal recovery dollars.

"I'm basically asking Blakely, who's probably getting paid a whole hell of a lot more money than I am, to do his damn job," O'Dell said.

"He's there not only to plan, but to execute. Not only to manage, but lead. He's not an elected official, but as a nonelected official he wields enormous influence over the future of this city and the speed of its recovery," he continued.

"And he's failing, in my view."

(snip)

Asked why he chose to be so blunt about the work of Blakely's office, O'Dell said: "What I'm trying to do is plainly tell the federal view, the universal federal view . . . that the federal government has created $126 billion worth of response to this tragedy. And there are a lot of people in the federal government who are not happy with the way it's being applied -- with the speed it's being applied, the efficiency with which it's being applied. And there's great concern as to the transparency with which its being applied."

O'Dell said Thursday that Blakely's office sometimes seeks recovery money for projects "based on rough sketches, arm waving, 'imagineering,' whatever."

THERE'S ONE THING, however, that I couldn't tell you whether O'Dell grasps or not. It's the sad fact that this is as good as it gets in the Big Uneasy.

I don't know that the former Marine general apprehends that New Orleans is the slow-witted goombah in the godfather's coterie -- the one who's just as eager to skim a few Benjamins off the top of the weekly protection-money haul as he is clueless that the capo (that would be the Louisiana statehouse) knows the score and would have had him whacked years ago, except that N'Awly is mama's sister's baby boy, and even Michael Corleone doesn't need that kind of heat.

And even Michael Corleone doesn't need that kind of heat. . . .

And even Michael Corleone doesn't need that kind of heat. . . .

AS THE CIVIC-MINDED IDIOT with an admitted soft spot for N'Awly, I've been saying and saying, "N'Awly, cut that s*** out . . . the Big Boss is wise to you, and if he don't whack you, the G-Man will!"

And N'Awly, he say, "Aw, Favog! You worry too much. Ain't nobody gonna mess wit N'Awly. If Cuz get too mad at me, I'll shake Unk Sam down for a few thou more, and we be square. Chill, Cap!"

And den I say, "Cher, you don' unnerstand. It different this time. Unk Sam sick of coughin' up more protection money than what he owe da Capo. I hear he been talkin' to da feds, an' if push come to shove, da Big Boss gonna hang you out to dry wid da G-Man.

"Dat way, you outta his hair, and he don' have to tell his Mama he had her sister's baby boy whacked."

And then N'Awly say . . . well, N'Awly was gonna say sumptin', but right then the floodwall started leakin' through the newspaper expansion joint . . . and this wall a water started headin' our way . . . and I ain't ashamed to say I got the hell outta there.

Last I saw N'Awly, he was kickin in the door of da liquor store, tryin' to grab him a case of Early Times before the water got too high and rurnt it.

I GUESS UNK SAM -- not to mention Gen. O'Dell -- knew how to get N'Awly out of everybody's hair after all. Something tells me N'Awly's (and the Capo's, too) days in the "protection" bidness are numbered.

NOAH's lark lands on mountain o' cash

The Times-Picayune has a couple of tales of your tax money "at work" in New Orleans.

TALE NO. 1:

Doris Grandpre knows exactly who gutted her 7th Ward house last year, then helped her start rebuilding the single shotgun where she lived for three decades before Hurricane Katrina.

"There was David. You got Christopher. Then there was Jason. Oh, and Simon," Grandpre, 76, said this week, recalling the student volunteers who came from Boston and Seattle to tear out her plaster walls and save the few precious items the flood did not destroy.

"I call them my little angels," she said.

It appears, however, that another crew has taken credit for demolition work at Grandpre's house. City records show that Hall & Hall Enterprises, the highest-paid contractor in Mayor Ray Nagin's home remediation program, billed the city $7,830 for gutting and boarding up the house and cutting the grass at the St. Anthony Street property.

The house is one of at least seven addresses that appear on two lists detailing post-storm remediation. One list belongs to the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana's Office of Disaster Response, which organized volunteers from across the country to come to New Orleans and provide free home remediation services, such as gutting and boarding up homes, to residents in need of help.

Those same addresses appear on a list produced by the nonprofit New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Corp., which oversaw a remediation program that contractors billed a total of $1.8 million.

The homeownership corporation, also known as NOAH, billed taxpayers more than $25,000 for work at those addresses.

Grandpre, a retired nursing aide at Charity Hospital, said Wednesday that she has no idea how her address got on NOAH's gutting list. Since January 2007, she has lived in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer in her side yard, and no city contractor has ever stopped by.

"A group of kids took the stuff out," she said. "The only people who helped me was people from outside the city."

The duplicate entries on the NOAH and church lists raise more questions about the management of a short-lived city program designed to help elderly and poor residents along the road to recovery. A city official said last week that, to his knowledge, NOAH had paid out all of the $1.8 million to its subcontractors.

In light of the scrutiny, NOAH's board of directors suspended the organization's business last week and served notice Wednesday that its remaining four employees will be terminated Friday as of 5 p.m. Officials declined to name the employees or disclose their salaries. NOAH's former executive director, Stacey Jackson, resigned in June.

Also on Wednesday, the NOAH board asked the New Orleans Finance Authority to put into escrow federal funds that were to have been funneled to NOAH for use as soft-second mortgages for low-income homeowners.

(snip)

The shutdown of the agency comes as the FBI and the inspector general of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which authorized grants that financed the gutting program, have launched their own investigations. The city official who oversaw the program has acknowledged that City Hall improperly used the federal money and may have to pay back more than $223,000.

Meanwhile, Jackson, the former executive director, has been linked through business and personal connections to several contractors who worked for the program, including Richard Hall, whose firm billed for $345,000 worth of work, including gutting and boarding up Grandpre's house.

Another house, on Forshey Street near the Monticello Canal, fits the same pattern. Records provided by the Episcopal Diocese program show that volunteers from Texas arrived in October 2006 and tore drywall, tile and floorboards out of the house, which took on 7 feet of water in Katrina. The volunteers even managed to save a few heirlooms.

Ann Brown, whose brother owns the property, said she remembers the volunteers.

"I talked with someone from the church group who was there," said Brown, who lives a block away and keeps an eye on the lot. "I met them. I talked to them personally."

However, three separate NOAH contractors, including a firm owned by Nagin's brother-in-law, have billed City Hall a combined $5,115 to gut, board up and cut grass at the Forshey Street house.

Myers & Sons claimed it had done $4,415 worth of work at the lot, while Iron Triangle and Smith & Associates Consulting have billed $350 apiece. Smith & Associates is owned by Cedric Smith, whose sister is Nagin's wife, Seletha.

TALE NO.2:

Contractors working for New Orleans Affordable Homeownership billed taxpayers at least $123,000 to gut 30 homes that records show were torn down shortly thereafter -- also at public expense -- raising further questions about a troubled city agency charged with a leading role in flood recovery.

Interviews with neighbors suggest that some of that gutting work was in fact never performed.

Whether or not taxpayers were defrauded -- a question that has drawn the attention of federal investigators -- the fact that city-financed gutting crews were followed in short order by city-financed backhoe operators suggests, at best, a City Hall management debacle.

James Ross, a spokesman for Mayor Ray Nagin, said the city is required to pursue demolition of houses deemed to be health threats or in danger of collapse, regardless of whether they have been gutted. He also said that some homeowners may have reconsidered an initial decision to repair a home and sought its demolition instead.

All together, NOAH paid contractors about $1.7 million to gut about 460 properties, according to City Hall records. About 400 other properties received less costly services, mainly grass-cutting and boarding.

Slightly more than 10 percent of the homes the agency assigned to remediation contractors have since been demolished. The federal government financed about half of those demolitions; private individuals paid for the others.

Matt McBride, a blogger and activist who has maintained a database of all properties granted demolition permits since Hurricane Katrina, cross-referenced that list with a remediation list provided by NOAH. He found substantial crossover.

The Times-Picayune spot-checked 11 of the properties that the city spent the most money fixing, ranging from a property on Catina Street in Lakeview at a cost of $8,257 to a property on North Galvez Street in the Lower 9th Ward costing $4,070.

Ten of the 11 had been demolished. The city has issued a demolition permit for the only house still standing: the North Galvez property, one of only a couple of structures on a mostly abandoned block. The city issued the permit to one of the contractors hired to tear down blighted properties at taxpayer expense.

The house has been gutted, but it is unboarded and open to the elements. City records show the work on that house was done by Hall & Hall Enterprises, the highest-paid contractor in NOAH's remediation program.

Richard Hall Jr., who owns that firm, is a former business partner of NOAH's embattled former director, Stacey Jackson. He did not return a phone call Tuesday.

HERE WE HAVE two tales of a city. Do not expect any happy endings.

Here is what you can expect:

* The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Orleans -- the three federal prosecutors in Louisiana being the state's only effective defense against public corruption -- will get an indictment against Stacey Jackson, the former NOAH head. Perhaps other indictments will be forthcoming as well.

* Being that the trial has to be held somewhere in Louisiana, God only knows whether any convictions will be forthcoming.

* Federal relief money intended to help New Orleans and Louisiana recover from Hurricane Katrina will continue to be wasted, misallocated and blatantly stolen for as long as it continues to roll in.

* The people who need help the most will continue to get the least.

* New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin will continue to run reporters around in circles. When that stops working, he will denounce any reporter who's uncovered yet more graft, incompetence or outright stupidity as "hurting the recovery."

AS THEY SAY back home, "Dat's Looziana for you!"

And as they say everywhere else, "This just might be the time Louisiana cuts its own throat, but good."

Truly -- with the exception of harboring Islamist guerrillas who carry out attacks against the national government -- the Gret Stet reminds one of no less than Russia's troublesome Chechen Republic, an economically devastated region of the dysfunctional and the disadvantaged . . . and of grafters, mobsters and kidnappers. With every outbreak of shenanigans across its post-Katrina landscape, Louisiana further cements its status as America's Chechnya.

And in New Orleans, "an economically devastated region of the dysfunctional and the disadvantaged . . . and of grafters, mobsters and kidnappers" describes Central City on a particularly good day.

FOR THREE YEARS NOW, in the wake of Katrina and the federal flood, Louisiana pols and New Orleans "leaders" have trekked to Washington, D.C., with their hands outstretched. Billions upon billions of taxpayers' dollars, after much wrangling, have been put into those outstretched hands.

And now the outstretched hands full of taxpayers' dollars have been slipped, it would appear, into the pockets of politicians and their cronies -- just as the most cynical and parsimonious in the nation's capital said would happen.

Barring the resumption, after 140 years, of Reconstruction and military occupation (which, really, Louisianians ought to be on their knees praying for . . . that being their last, best hope) there is only one surefire way to stop Louisiana in its thieving tracks.

Only one remaining way to stop crooked pols, their crooked agencies and crooked contractors from collecting federal dollars for work volunteer church kids did. Only one last chance to stop fools in public office from taking federal money to "remediate" flooded homes . . . right before more federal money goes toward bulldozing those same "remediated" homes.

Cut off the cash. Now. Every penny.

There's an old saying I heard over and over growing up in Louisiana -- "Root, hog, or die." Maybe it's time my home state (and the crooks who run it, and the enablers who populate it) find out exactly what that means.

HAT TIP: Your Right Hand Thief.

Easy answers to stupid questions

Former Louisiana secretary of state -- and former insurance commissioner -- Jim Brown asks an odd rhetorical question on a blog post this morning. Odd because the answer is so obvious that it doesn't even beg a question, rhetorical or otherwise.

Brown, on the cleverly named Jim Brown Blog, wants to know:

ARE WE ALL FEDERAL CRIMINALS
LIVING IN LOUISIANA?

The short answer: Yes.

The long answer: Hell, yes.

The funny irony: Jim Brown is a convicted federal criminal living in Louisiana.

Brown is upset that state Sen. Derrick Shepherd (the noted droopy pants opponent) was hauled before a federal judge after being accused of slapping around his girlfriend:

Louisiana State Senator Derrick Shepherd gets in a tussle with his girlfriend over the weekend and he's hauled off to federal court. Is there any violation of the law that is not considered a federal offense? If anyone actually takes the time to read the U.S. Constitution, there are only three crimes specifically enumerated. Treason, piracy and counterfeiting. So why has Congress undertaken an overzealous expansion of criminal laws?

A report from the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies recently determined that there are some 4500 federal crimes listed in the US Code. It used to be that Congress would create one particular crime by passing a new law. But in recent years, multiple crimes are listed within the same statute. One new law enacted right after 9/11 contained 60 new crimes. Were they really necessary?

Our representatives in Washington now want to delve into any number of local crimes, flaunting the intention of our country's founders. Drugs, robbery, car theft, the list goes on and on. What happened to the 14th amendment and states rights?

NO, IF SHEPHERD slapped around his girlfriend, that would not, per se, be a federal crime.

But getting arrested is a violation of the terms on which Shepherd was released by the federal court as the senator awaits his federal trial on fraud and conspiracy charges. Of the federal variety.

Funny how that works, huh?

Having grown up in the 1960s and '70s, I remember that NORML used to be quite the deal. You know, NORML -- the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Basically, what you had was a bunch of heads who couldn't stay off weed, so they sought to repeal the laws that said you couldn't smoke the ganja, mon.

Apparently, what we have in Louisiana is a state full of pols -- and pols' crooked cronies -- who just can't stay off the graft, mon. And if everybody's doing it . . . why do it gots to be a federal offense?

Mon.

Or, to put some lipstick on a porker of an argument, Brown concludes:

In 400 B.C., the Greek orator Isocrates stated: "Where there is a multitude of specific laws, it is a sign that the state is badly governed." Tasedus wrote in the 1st century A.D. of Rome: “Formerly we suffered from crimes. Now we suffer from laws."

UHHHHH . . . that would be Tacitus. Publius Cornelius Tacitus.

Add education to the list of things in Louisiana that ought to be a federal crime.

Gutting ghosts in New Orleans

So far, here's what the American taxpayer -- and the long-suffering citizenry of New Orleans -- have gotten for the billions upon billions of dollars sent to rebuild that woebegone city in the wake of Katrina:

WAIT. That's not entirely fair.

The Louisiana Superdome did get fixed. And lots of homeless homeowners did get FEMA trailers reeking of carcinogenic formaldehyde.

Some people did get rebuilding money through the "Road Home" program . . . but only after first going through the ringer and then waiting a couple of years.

Oh . . . and some levees got rebuilt to prestorm standards. That means they leak, and they'll probably crumble in the teeth of a strong Category 2 hurricane. It also means that defective, washed-away floodwalls got rebuilt just as defectively, with contractors using newspaper for filler in expansion joints.

AND HERE'S WHAT we got in return for millions of federal "home remediation" dollars, according to a report by Lee Zurik of WWL television:

Using city and federal money, the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership program alleges to have gutted, boarded up and even cut grass in more than 1,000 homes.

“I would unequivocally say that's a false statement. There was no help,” said homeowner Mera Picou.

“I think somebody's lining their pockets,” added Garofalo.

In 2007, Mayor Ray Nagin urged low income and elderly New Orleans residents to sign up for his home remediation program, a $3.5 million program run by New Orleans Affordable Homeownership, a non-profit group that is actually a city agency.

A City Hall press release from last year says the remediation program uses "Community Development Block Grant funds to gut and board up to 5,000 homes of seniors and families with low to moderate income by year end 2007."

But did the program accomplish its goals?

Community activist and internet blogger Karen Gadbois started following New Orleans Affordable Home Ownership’s program shortly after its inception.

“The program may not be legitimate,” she said. “I wanted to see this program work, and I didn't see it.”

Eyewitness News joined Gadbois in reviewing pages of material provided by the non-profit agency, that details every property it claims to have remediated. One document even lists the cost. Gadbois calls the information we found startling.

For example, city records show some duplexes in Hollygrove are owned by a man who lives on Carrollton Avenue and used to rent them out. Under the plan's guidelines, that alone would likely disqualify him. But the units haven't even been gutted since the storm. NOAH still says its contractors did $5,000 worth of work to them.

On Jeannette Street, NOAH says it remediated a home in the 8900 block. When WWL-TV went to find the house, a news crew found an empty lot instead. A neighbor said the house had been torn down well before Hurricane Katrina.

NOAH documents also show a house remediated at 8741 Apple Street, a property that doesn't exist. Also on the NOAH list is a house on Willow Street owned by Orleans Metropolitan Housing and Community Development, a charity connected to indicted Rep. William Jefferson and his brother Mose, who is also facing federal charges.

Eyewitness News also found a property on General Pershing Street in one set of records. It is owned by Clourth Wilson, who happens to work for the City of New Orleans Safety and Permits Department.

When reached by phone at his City Hall office, Wilson told WWL-TV that New Orleans Affordable Homeownerhip did no work following the storm to his house. He said all of the gutting and boarding up was done by him.

On the West bank, NOAH claims to have done almost $1,700 of remediation to a property at 1301 Brooklyn Avenue. It's unclear if that property is an empty lot in that block or the warehouse behind it, which belongs to Mardi Gras World.

“I don't think those agencies or individuals or people were applying for free gutting,” Karen Gadbois said.

The owner of a home on Law Street said she didn't apply for help and NOAH didn't do remediation work, even though a NOAH sign recently popped up on the house, almost 12 months after the program shut down.

Gadbois said of the more than 100 properties she has reviewed, only two seemed to show signs of actual repair by NOAH.

So where did the money go? And why do the non-profit’s own records raise so many questions?

NOAH’s executive director left the agency in late June. Her interim replacement, Tonya Durden, e-mailed Eyewitness News on Friday, declining a request for an interview.

YOU REALLY NEED to see the video report on the WWL website. A picture really is worth a thousand words, and that report easily is worth a whole book.

As a nation questioned why New Orleans ought to be rebuilt at all -- for reasons ranging, basically, from sheer racism to sheer misanthropy -- it likewise fully realized that you just can't, in this day and age, come right out and admit that you're merely a bunch of hard-hearted bastards. No, you need something to justify kicking a region while it's down.

Unfortunately for Louisiana and New Orleans, their reputations preceded them. A blind man rattling a tin cup on a street corner ain't going to do much bidness if he's pullin' on a bottle of muscatel.

Despite all the flak . . . despite all the catcalls from Main Street and from Capitol Hill . . . despite the fact that what help it's gotten so far isn't nearly enough, what does the Crescent City do with what little cash that's dripped from the federal pipeline?

THIS JUST IN from our intrepid correspondent:

Down in New Orlean, where ev'rything is fine
All them cats is drinkin that wine
Drinking that mess, their delight
When they gets drunk, start singing all night

Drinkin' wine spo-dee-O-dee, drinkin' wine (bop ba)
Wine spo-dee-O-dee, drinkin' wine (bop ba)
Wine spo-dee-O-dee, drinkin' wine (bop ba)
Pass that bottle to me

Drinking that mess, their delight
When they gets drunk, start fighting all night
Knocking down windows and tearin out doors
Drinkin' half a gallon and callin' for more

Drinkin' wine spo-dee-O-dee, drinkin' wine (bop ba)
Wine spo-dee-O-dee, drinkin' wine (bop ba)
Wine spo-dee-O-dee, drinkin' wine (bop ba)
Pass that bottle to me

Hoy! Hoy! Hoy!
Wine, wine, wine (Elderberry!)
Wine, wine, wine (Or Sherry!)
Wine, wine, wine (Blackberry!)
Wine, wine, wine (Half 'n half!)
Wine, wine, wine (Oh Boy!)
Pass that bottle to me

COME TO THINK OF IT, pass that bottle to me.

The difference between Chiquita and plantains

At some point, the story below will hit the American newspapers. Some time after that -- perhaps in the library of the federal prison in Oakdale, La. -- former Louisiana Gov. Edwin W. Edwards will see the headline "Bush lobbyist promises access for presidential library cash," throw the paper aside under a guard's wary gaze, then mutter "Son of a bitch!"

And it will occur to the silver-haired old man once again that his big mistake in shaking down casino operators all those years ago was that, in his hubris, he wasn't subtle enough. That he didn't have a distant-enough middle man to give him that certain je ne sais quoi -- Comment tu dit en anglais? -- "plausible deniability."

DAMN THAT George W. Bush and all his Washington money . . . all his Washington lobbyists . . . his damned presidential library. "Why couldn't I have rounded up a lobbyist pal or two?" the erstwhile "Silver Zipper" will think. "Why not a @#$&*!!#$! Edwin W. Edwards Gubernatorial Library?"

Why not, indeed. In today's editions, The Sunday Times (London) outlines how the old grafter could have gotten away with it . . . and stayed out of the federal slammer . . . if he had been Washington slick in addition to Louisiana greedy:

A lobbyist with close ties to the White House is offering access to key figures in George W Bush’s administration in return for six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.

Stephen Payne, who claims to have raised more than $1m for the president’s Republican party in recent years, said he would arrange meetings with Dick Cheney, the vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and other senior officials in return for a payment of $250,000 (£126,000) towards the library in Texas.

Payne, who has accompanied Bush and Cheney on several foreign trips, also said he would try to secure a meeting with the president himself.

(snip)

During an undercover investigation by The Sunday Times, Payne was asked to arrange meetings in Washington for an exiled former central Asian president. He outlined the cost of facilitating such access.

“The exact budget I will come up with, but it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library,” said Payne, who sits on the US homeland security advisory council.

He said initially that the “family” of the Asian politician should make the donation. He later added that if all the money was paid to him he would make the payment to the Bush library. Publicly, it would appear to have been made in the politician’s name “unless he wants to be anonymous for some reason”.

Payne said the balance of the $750,000 would go to his own lobbying company, Worldwide Strategic Partners (WSP).

Asked by an undercover reporter who the politician would be able to meet for that price, Payne said: “Cheney’s possible, definitely the national security adviser [Stephen Hadley], definitely either Dr Rice or . . . I think a meeting with Dr Rice or the deputy secretary [John Negroponte] is possible . . .

“The main thing is that he [the Asian politician] comes, and he’s well received, that he meets with high-level people . . . and we send positive statements made back from the administration about ‘This guy wasn’t such a bad guy, many people have done worse’.”

WHEN YOU HEAR folks in Washington talk about Louisiana as a "banana republic," what one needs to realize is it's not a slam on the Gret Stet as a corrupt, less-than-democratic kleptocracy where the rich get richer and the poor poorer. Though, of course, the Bayou State is all that.

What your unctuous Washington swell really is saying is "Look at those rubes and bumpkins. They play the game so crudely . . . they are soooooo declassé!"

And the Beltway swell will have a point. At its heart, Louisiana is a country kind of place.

As a banana republic, the Gret Stet is all about Ricky Bobby, two-steps, Chiquita and Abita Turbodog lager. That'll "git 'er done," but you must admit it's lacking in the panache department.

Washington, on the other hand, is the seat of government of a much better class of banana republic. Inside the Beltway, it's all about the National Symphony at Kennedy Center, the horizontal bop with a $2,000 "escort," fried plantains and Cabernet Sauvignon.

NO, GEORGE W. BUSH has his Stephen Payne, and -- alas -- El Presidente probably won't be dressing in khaki jumpsuits and looking forward to a daily "exercise period" anytime soon.

Damn pity, that.


UPDATE: Don't forget to check out this revealing sidebar on what a little -- OK, a lot -- of cash and the right lobbyist can get you from the White House these days:

What Payne did not know was that the third person at the Lanesborough meeting last Monday was an undercover Sunday Times reporter. Nor did he know that the meeting was being recorded.

The Sunday Times had initially approached Dos earlier for help in investigating corrupt practices in his homeland of Kazakhstan. Many business deals there are said to involve the discreet transfer of money between figures high up in the Kazakh regime and western companies.

Dos is exiled from Kazakhstan after setting up his own political party, Atameken, at the end of 2006. He was forced to flee following threats to his life.

Before that happened, however, he acted as an adviser to Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president, and a man of considerable influence within the country.

Dos said that in the autumn of 2005 he had been asked by the Kazakh government, via Kulibayev, to arrange a visit by Cheney. The intention was to improve the country’s international standing.

Dos had spent several days negotiating with Payne. A deal was eventually agreed, he said, and he understood that a payment of $2m was passed, via a Kazakh oil and gas company, to Payne’s firm.

The following May, Cheney made a brief trip to Kazakhstan. His visit was remarked upon in the media at the time, both for the lavish praise which he publicly heaped on Nazarbayev and for the stark contrast between this and a speech he had made just a day earlier at a conference in Lithuania in which he had lambasted Russia for being insufficiently democratic. Now he was lauding Nazarbayev, who has effectively made himself president for life and in whose country it is an offence to criticise him.

“Why did Cheney castigate Russia’s imperfect democracy while saying not a word about Kazakhstan’s shameless travesty of the democratic system?” said one newspaper following the visit. “Cheney’s flattery of the Kazakh regime was sickening,” said another.

Dos believes some of the money paid to WSP may have found its way to “entities” connected to the Bush administration.

In order to test which channels might be available to foreigners seeking influence within the US, Dos agreed to approach Payne, at The Sunday Times’s request, with a fabricated story about Akayev wanting to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the world. Akayev was not aware of the approach to Payne.

Dos initially contacted Payne, who is based in Houston, Texas, via e-mail, and mentioned the possibility of making payments to “the Republican party or any other institutions affiliated with the Bushes”. Payne responded quickly, saying he was in London the following week.

The meeting at the Lanesborough began with Payne explaining that later that evening he was meeting a Conservative MP, Mark Pritchard, in order to sign him up as a paid “adviser” to WSP. Also due to meet Payne later was Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, apparently for separate discussions.

Pritchard’s value to Payne lay in his position as chairman of the House of Commons all- party Russia group. The MP, Payne said, had named his price, and it was acceptable to him.

So certain, in fact, was Payne that Pritchard would “cement the relationship” that night that he had already included him in his latest “confidential” brochure as one of WSP’s consultants.

I PREDICT the Russians and Edwin Edwards are going to become pen pals with an axe to grind.

Well, probably not. But you'd like to think. Good grief.

The importance of seeming earnest

When a politician allows himself to be sold to the voters as a "messiah," watch out. The only thing you can be sure of is that's exactly what he ain't.

IN LOUISIANA'S gubernatorial election last fall, it seemed the biggest things Bobby Jindal had going for him were the aura of competence and relative honesty. It is starting to look as if the great tragedy of Louisiana's gubernatorial election last fall is this was the best of a sad lot from which to pick.

WAFB television in Baton Rouge reports on what may be the latest act in the Gret Stet's ongoing tragedy -- or comedy, take your pick. Let's call it either Oedipus Dreck or The Importance of Seeming Earnest:

A few key words passed by the legislature could pull the rug out from under Governor Jindal's most important accomplishment - ethics reform. Legislators changed the standard of evidence needed to find someone unethical from "reliable, substantial" to "clear and convincing." So, what does that mean?

The change from just "reliable and substantial" evidence needed to "clear and convincing" could mean fewer people get punished for breaking state ethics laws. So, what does Governor Jindal think of all this? We had trouble getting answers. Governor Bobby Jindal's press secretary, Melissa Sellers, would not let us speak to the governor Friday for answers to our questions about ethics reform. The governor received the Golden Mic award from the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters, which is where 9NEWS tried to get comments from him. He's been called Louisiana's golden boy and he says he set the gold standard for ethics reform. "I think the legislature and the media got tired of me saying "gold standard," but it was important we did indeed set that gold standard."

However, political analyst Jim Engster says if Jindal does not speak up and help fix this crucial ethics standard of evidence change, his golden status could melt away. "Many would think it's much easier to convict somebody of ethics charges under the old standard, so instead of the gold standard, we may have something less than that," Engster says. He says starting August 15th, Louisiana's ethics laws could actually get weaker, instead of stronger. The state's legal standard for finding someone unethical would change from reliable, substantial evidence needed to "clear and convincing" unless legislators make an amendment this session. "There isn't a lot of time to address this and the governor could make it happen in a hurry if he wants to," Engster says.

THE FIRST WARNING SIGN about Louisiana's would-be gubernatorial messiah was "Oops. I forgot to report that huge in-kind contribution from the Party."

Then there was "Do as I say on ethics, because I'm dishing out the freebies now."

And then came "Transparency's fine for thee. but not for me."

And now, the suffering citizenry of Louisiana might be staring "The ethics reform that ain't" right in its smirking face. That's the problem with voting for a messiah: There's only been one of those who was worth a damn.

He came around some 2,000 years ago, and He never campaigned for the job.

Being that that's not going to happen again -- the job has been filled, and it's a permanent gig -- wishing and hoping (and voting) for an earthly messiah to fix all what ails you is the most foolish of fool's errands. And if the definition of insanity is doing the same damn thing over and over but expecting a different outcome next time, then what Louisiana is really asking for is Nurse Ratched.

Or is that Wretched?

The ass-backward state. Really.

Louisiana state Sen. Derrick Shepherd is so concerned about young men in droopy pants showing their asses -- or at least their drawers -- to God and everybody that he thinks there ought to be a law.

So he has introduced an anti-droop bill . . . again, says The Associated Press:

While it's been in fashion for years, the saggy-pants look also has been an affront to many authority figures, including state Sen. Derrick Shepherd. After losing a vote on the issue in 2004, Shepherd is again trying to pass legislation to ban droopy trousers.

"All the different municipalities around the state saying they want it tells me that a state ban on this type of idiocy is needed," said Shepherd, D-New Orleans. [Marrero, actually. -- R21]

About a dozen Louisiana municipalities have enacted or are considering their own bans on "sagging." They reason that those adopting the dress are emulating the beltless look of prison inmates, that baggy clothes could conceal weapons or that exposure of underwear is offensive and just plain indecent.

Not all cities are joining in. St. Martinville Mayor Thomas Nelson said leaders there have decided against a ban, fearing a lawsuit.

"My concern was - don't get me wrong, I'm not for the saggy pants - you're leaving yourself open, especially with the (ACLU)," he said.

Indeed, the American Civil Liberties Union has consistently opposed efforts to ban low-slung pants and helped defeat Shepherd's 2004 effort. The ACLU will oppose it again this year, the head of its Louisiana office, Marjorie Esman said Friday, citing issues of freedom of expression and concerns the law would be used to target black youths.

"I welcome a challenge," Shepherd said. He dismisses complaints that the law violates the First Amendment or that it could be used to target young black men who adopt the fashion.

"I've heard that from some more liberal-minded blacks and some liberal-minded whites," said Shepherd, who is black. "But my counter to that is: Why is it that we believe that young black men or black women, whoever would show themselves in such a manner, can't simply follow the law and pull up their pants?"

The future of his bill is uncertain. Aside from any court challenges, and the Legislature's 59-34 defeat of his last effort, Shepherd faces a new distraction in his fight for moral rectitude. On Thursday, he was indicted on money laundering and fraud charges. Shepherd proclaimed his innocence and will continue serving while fighting the charges.

LOUISIANIANS MUST BE pretty amused by our amusement at just how ass-backward one state can be. Otherwise, they'd be mortified at their own civic, educational and economic ineptitude and insist that their elected representatives worry instead about pulling up Louisiana's abysmal education statistics, pulling out of a vicious cycle of crime and poverty, and pulling in a new culture of excellence and honesty.

And they would make sure the indicted senator from Marerro got a nice pair of day-glo orange Sansabelt pants as a thoughful cell-warming gift. Just the thing for the well-dressed felon.

Desperately seeking messiahs

America, a nation that has forgotten both God and common sense, busies itself this electoral "silly season" looking for messiahs in all the wrong places.

ON THE LEFT, some of Sen. Barack Obama's sillier supporters seem to think he, if only we elect him president, might lead us to the Promised Land. After all, the man is black (and white!), he's cool under fire and he gives a hell of a speech.

Meanwhile, on the right, some of the sillier members of a stupid party are looking into the fever swamps of Louisiana for their messiah. After all, the state's new governor, Bobby Jindal, is brown, he's a scary-smart policy wonk and he's conservative, dammit . . . whatever "conservative" happens to mean this month.

Now, silly young people designing silly faux-religious icons with Obama's serene visage replacing that of Christ, the Virgin Mary or a saint are way up there on the silly-o-meter.

And sillier yet might be author Alice Walker writing columns in British newspapers with prose like "He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill."

BUT I AM NOT convinced that, for all its nuttery, the Obama worship is any crazier than that of Jindal by the GOP chattering classes. I mean, get a load of this by Mary Katharine Ham on Townhall.com:

There once was a man who campaigned on a message of hope and change. In his victory speech he promised never to succumb to a worldview in which “lobbyists begin to look larger and the people begin to look smaller.” In exchange, he asked voters to help him “defeat cynicism” by believing in him and themselves.

For schools, for government, for business, “change is not just on the way . . . Change begins tonight,” he proclaimed, his quick grin and young family breathing life back into a process gone sour, his unique life story bringing voters from unexpected backgrounds.

Sound familiar? It should. You’ve heard the media tell the story a thousand times a day. They’re just telling it about the wrong guy.

These days, Bobby Jindal is working for change in a city that could eat the ethical foibles of Obama’s Chicago for breakfast, like so many shrimp upon a bed of grits. Elected governor of Louisiana in 2007, he replaced the politically deflated Kathleen Blanco, who did not seek reelection.

Jindal is keenly aware of the problematic legacy he inherits. Inside Huey Long’s sky-scraping capital building, “I wonder what crimes were committed here?” is a not infrequent visitor question, posed not quite jokingly. The state’s political history is fraught with the kind of men Southerners often euphemistically call “colorful,” who given proper federal investigation, end up being very uneuphemistically corrupt.

READY TO PUKE? No? Well hang on, then. Read this and, soon enough, you'll be purging like a New York model after a cheesecake binge:

He’s also aware of the opportunity his state offers. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were talked about, on a national level, as revelations of persistent poverty in America. In Louisiana, they were a reminder, too, of the political perfidy that’s perpetuated it.

“Shame on us if all we build is what was here before,” Jindal told a small group of bloggers at the governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge last week.

Unwilling to accept Louisiana as it was — one of the most uneducated, unethical, and unhealthy states in the union — Jindal made ethics reform his first priority, working on the theory that being a national punchline doesn’t draw business investment.

The 36-year-old governor slid into a January special legislative session on the strength of his political capital and came out with one of the strongest ethics reform packages in a nation awash with attempts at reform.

(snip)

To Jindal, the big-government response to Hurricane Katrina betrayed conservatives’ lack of confidence in their own ideas, and his first three months in office have gone a long way toward showing he has all the courage of conviction he needs.

The Republican Party remains the party of ideas in Louisiana, under Jindal’s leadership. And, as the unabashed policy wonk runs through four-point plan after four-point plan in his detailed recipe for Cajun-style reform, his 3-year-old son big-wheeling through the foyer of the governor’s mansion, one can’t help but think, “So this is what real change looks like.”

OH. PUH. LEEZE. Just because the Democrats of Louisiana are, indeed, sad specimens it does not therefore follow that the state's Republicans -- headed by Jindal or no -- are exactly a bunch of Einsteins.

Before Jindal's election, about the biggest idea the Louisiana GOP had was "For a good time, call Wendy Cortez." And we see where that got U.S. Sen. David Vitter.

Then there's this bit of political idolatry from James P. Lucier, writing in The Wall Street Journal:

No, this is the time for change, real change. This is a time for someone whom everybody knows to be the rising star of the GOP, the new governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal.

And what a governor! Having taken office in January, after winning 54% of the vote in the open-field primary, Mr. Jindal immediately called a special session of the legislature and persuaded them to pass his 64-point agenda for ethics reform. They said ethics reform couldn't be done in Louisiana--a state whose reputation as a cesspool is legendary--but he did it in a two-week session. Now he's calling a second special session to pass the tax cuts necessary to jump-start the post-Katrina economy in his state.

I'M MIDDLE-AGED, I'm too fat, and I have a bad knee. If I went back home to touch the hem of my gubna's bidness suit, do you think I could be thin, young and have my lost hair back?

I didn't think so.

But it seems like Rebubbacans -- in some cases, the same ones who've been so aghast at the messianism of the Cult of Obama -- lust to bestow no less a plethora of mythical, wonder-working powers upon their own Great Brown Hope.

And the Rebubbacans' "theological proofs" are even more scanty than the Cult of Obama's. After all, the Louisiana savior merely jumped from wonkdom to wonkdom before losing to Kathleen Blanco in the 2003 gubernatorial race, then served an undistinguished term and a half in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Now, let me return to some of that Ham-handed purple prose on Townhall.com.

Jindal is the GOP messiah because he's going to fix "one of the most uneducated, unethical, and unhealthy states in the union." Oh, yes. He will do this despite being born, raised, educated and culturally assimilated in "one of the most uneducated, unethical, and unhealthy states in the union."

See, Bobby Jindal went to my old high school -- Baton Rouge Magnet High -- almost a decade after I did. It was -- and is -- an island of excellence established, staffed and funded by the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, a governmental body Louisiana Republicans just love to hate . . . and which they regularly try to deny tax revenue because it's irredeemably awful, don't you know?

SO WHAT WE HAVE is the Rebubbacans' new messiah, educated by a school system that oughtn't have been able to properly educate a GOP savior . . . because it had not yet been healed by his policy touch. After all, Jindal was still in his messianic-formation program -- in that Louisiana public school.

In a school system many white Baton Rougeans, many of them loyal Rebubbacans, were so busy fleeing.

Got that?

Oops.

What kind of Republican messiah is this who can arise from unhealthy, unethical and uneducated backwardness? Probably an unneeded one. To steal a line from that other messiah, Louisianians themselves are the change they've been waiting for.

All they've needed all along is to just do it.

Right there in Baton Rouge, ordinary citizens and their "broken" institutions already have, after all, turned out a real-life political savior. Go figure.

Would you buy a used lobbyist from this man?

Would this be an example of Sen. John McCain being "imprudent," like what one of his friends mentioned to The New York Times in that story the GOP presidential candidate so hotly denies?

Newsweek reports:

A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.

McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."

The issue erupted again this week when the New York Times reported that McCain's top campaign strategist at the time, John Weaver, was so concerned about what Iseman (who was representing Paxson) was saying about her access to McCain that he personally confronted her at a Washington restaurant and told her to stay away from the senator.

GIVING THE strong impression that you're on the take is imprudent. Galavanting around the country with a hot lobbyist not your wife is imprudent.

Vowing to keep our overstretched armed forces in a Middle Eastern cesspool for 50, 100 or 10,000 years "if need be" is imprudent. Flat-out asserting "there will be other wars" is imprudent, if for no other reason than tipping your hand in a high-stakes international poker game.

Unless you're bluffing. Which -- given the stakes and your opponents' willingness to call your bluff in the name of Allah -- is damned imprudent right there.

What's really imprudent, though, is telling bald-face lies to a press corps that more than has the means, the skill and the motivation to conclusively prove you're a damned liar tout de suite. If McCain, on the verge of securing the Republican nomination, is that contemptuous of the truth then follows up by completely underestimating the press corps, he is a man who has no business in the Oval Office.

We've had a gullet full of just the same -- with catastrophic results -- from its present occupant.

Everybody's crooked deep down

"Say it ain't so, Joe! Say it ain't so!"

It's the refrain of the modern age . . . and of the postmodern one, too.

So, let's see here. Who or what is the latest revered person or institution revealed to be a fraud -- or, in the words of one of my favorite Derek Webb songs, "crooked deep down"?

I THINK this Washington Post story might begin to shed some light:

Some of Major League Baseball's greatest stars, including pitcher Roger Clemens and outfielder Barry Bonds, are linked to the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in a report released today by former Senate Majority leader George J. Mitchell.

The report also names pitcher Andy Pettitte, outfielder Gary Sheffield, shortstop Miguel Tejada, who was traded Wednesday by the Baltimore Orioles to the Houston Astros, and dozens of other current and former players, many of them All-Stars.

"For more than a decade there has been widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances by players in Major League Baseball, in violation of federal law and baseball policy," the report says. "Club officials routinely have discussed the possibility of such substance use when evaluating players. Those who have illegally used these substances range from players whose major league careers were brief to potential members of the baseball Hall of Fame. They include both pitchers and position players, and their backgrounds are as diverse as those of all major league players."

Mitchell said during an afternoon news conference in New York that each major league team had at least one player linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs during the period that he investigated.

"The response by baseball was slow to develop and was initially ineffective, but it gained momentum after the adoption of a mandatory random drug testing program in 2002," the report says. "That program has been effective in that detectable steroid use appears to have declined. But the use of human growth hormone has risen because, unlike steroids, it is not detectable through urine testing."

Mitchell said that he and his investigators interviewed former New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski four times and interviewed former trainer Brian McNamee three times. Players accused of use were given the chance to speak to Mitchell and his investigators but, almost without exception, declined, Mitchell said.

SAY IT AIN'T SO! But, of course, it probably is. Almost assuredly is.

What? You're surprised?

Why, in Heaven's name? It's an old story. One of the oldest, in fact. The only thing that changes is the increasing sophistication of our fraudulence -- in whatever endeavor -- in the face of increased scrutiny, media saturation and a 24-hour news cycle.

So now, scratch out Joe -- as in "Shoeless" Joe Jackson of the "Black Sox" scandal -- and enter "Say it ain't so, Roger! (or Barry, or Andy, or Paul, or Jason, or Gary, or Jose) into your Palm Pilot. According to the big report, they were all juiced, and the big leagues were all about seeing no banned substances, hearing no talk of banned substances or speaking nothing about banned substances.

Of course, when you turn on Fox or ESPN or whatever, what you get is a non-stop PR machine for the major leagues, where all the players ooze High School Musical: The Baseball Team, everybody's a humanitarian, and all those feats of athletic derring-do are solely the result of weight training and Wheaties.

Yeah, and the United States does not torture "enemy combatants," either.

AND HOW ABOUT that Roger Clemens? He's a regular Sheriff Andy Taylor and Mother Teresa, all rolled into one folksy, Texas-sized package of immortality.

That is, if Andy of Mayberry ever got illegal shots in the ass from the likes of characters like this, as reported by The Smoking Gun:

Deprived of a Serpico-like source among the Major League ranks, Mitchell, a former U.S. Senator and federal prosecutor, relied heavily on information provided by a pair of key sources: Kirk Radomski, a former New York Mets clubhouse attendant, and Brian McNamee, who once worked as a New York Yankees strength coach and personal trainer for Clemens and Pettitte.

Additionally, Mitchell's investigators were provided information gathered by federal and state agents who have probed the notorious Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), as well as a nationwide steroid distribution ring that has been probed by the Albany, New York district attorney's office.

According to the report, McNamee told Mitchell that he began injecting Clemens with steroids in 1998, when the pitcher was with the Toronto Blue Jays and that the athlete's performance "showed remarkable improvement." In subsequent years, McNamee said, he also injected Clemens with human growth hormone and testosterone at the athlete's New York City apartment.

McNamee also told Mitchell that, at Pettitte's request, he injected the Yankees pitcher with human growth hormone in 2002, when the lefthander was on the disabled list with an elbow injury. Like Clemens, Pettitte declined Mitchell's request to meet with him.

McNamee, 40, is an ex-cop who recently began cooperating with federal investigators after being confronted with evidence that he received steroids from Radomski and was apparently acting as a "sub-distributor." The report notes that he has been "debriefed extensively by federal prosecutors and agents," who confirmed that McNamee's statements to Mitchell were consistent with those information previously provided to government investigators.

While working for the Yankees in October 2001, McNamee was questioned by Florida cops in connection with the alleged sexual assault of woman in a St. Petersburg hotel pool. The woman claimed the attack came after she unknowingly ingested GHB, the so-called date rape drug. Prosecutors later declined to press charges against McNamee, who cops said was found naked in the pool "thrusting himself" into the groggy woman.

INSPIRING, AIN'T IT? Delve deeper into TSG's excerpts from the Mitchell Report and be even further inspired . . . to throw up.

But then again, I'm probably being a tad hard on Roger and the boys. I'm a fraud, too. Crooked deep down.

And so are you.

But the problem with fraud on such a major-league scale is that, in a world where people, against all odds, want to believe in something -- even if it is in a bunch of grown men playing kids' games for millions of dollars a year -- poor schmucks keep getting taken for saps. That wears on a person.

That wears on a person's psyche, it wears on a person's heart, and it ultimately wears on a person's soul. What it does, drip by acidic drip, is eat away at our ability to trust. It destroys our ability to think anybody anywhere isn't a complete fraud and isn't playing us for fools.

It, like all serious sin, fractures our relationships with one another and turns up the noise level so that the small, still voice of God gets harder and harder to hear. And it makes the world just a little bit more "crooked deep down."

I hate it when that happens.