Among the other indices of civilizational erosion in Louisiana
is the decline in the quality of the state’s political crooks. Even
corruption isn’t done well there anymore. Louisiana pols once
prided themselves on the efficient, stylish, and subtle performance
of graft. Historians note as an example of this the advice of Earl
Long, Huey’s brother: “Don’t write anything you can phone. Don’t
phone anything you can talk. Don’t talk anything you can whisper.
Don’t whisper anything you can smile. Don’t smile anything you can
nod. Don’t nod anything you can wink.”
Now the corruption is performed rather clumsily. Obvious looting
occurs not just amongst the criminal class but amongst the
political class that mirrors it. New Orleans Congressman William
Jefferson, underscoring that the city is home to a prodigious
number of thieves, is under investigation as an artless crook
himself. In August, the Washington Post reported that the
FBI, as part of an investigation into possible bribe-taking by
Jefferson, raided his homes and found money in his freezer.
Keeping money in a freezer falls a bit short of Earl Long’s
standards of circumspect corruption. But then Jefferson had won
election several times with the public knowing of his checkered
record. He had been sued for loan defaults and for being a slum
lord (Jefferson Parish filed suits against him, according to the
Washington Post, for letting his apartment buildings go to
seed and threatened to demolish them). And Jefferson is confident
apparently that he can get out of his various jams by playing the
race card. His lawyer has already implied racism is driving the FBI
investigation by telling the Washington Post that the FBI
chose to pursue its case in “white” Virginia instead of in New
Orleans.
This is the new Jesse Jackson-style twist on Louisiana’s
tradition of crooked populism: if pols get caught out helping
themselves to money through misuse of office while claiming to help
the downtrodden, they blame their troubles on racism. Huey Long
played the socialist card, saying the powerful didn’t want him to
help the poor; now the William Jeffersons play the race card,
saying the powerful don’t want them to help the black. Yet William
Jefferson’s blatant use of public resources intended for the
distressed underclass to fish a laptop out of his posh house, which
was reported this week, is one more illustration of malfeasance by
local pols that gives the lie to their accusations against the
federal government for its supposed indifference to the fate of New
Orleans blacks.
There is nothing particularly sophisticated or crafty about the
new Louisiana corruption. Eddie Jordan, New Orleans’ district
attorney, whose office has one of the most anemic conviction rates
in the country, is another bumbling practitioner of the state’s
tradition of spoils and patronage. He thought, even after
campaigning on aggressive affirmative action, that he could win a
discrimination lawsuit against canned white employees after firing
42 of them. He lost. Another transparent gaffe was his hiring of a
deadbeat dad to serve as his office’s enforcer of payments by
deadbeat dads.
Nor are the old Louisiana arts of corruption observed in the New
Orleans school district. In recent years the school district has
gotten so sloppy it has been known to send checks to people not on
staff, in some cases not even alive. The school district is
bankrupt, and parents are suing it for malpractice (demanding money
to send their children to private schools). Meanwhile, the
district’s idea of reform is to offer tickets to New Orleans Saints
games to children and parents who show up for the first day of
classes. According to the Associated Press, 30 percent of the
70,000 students in the system don’t appear on day one of the school
year.
Into this pit of corruption will now go billions of federal
monies. The same pols who wasted or pocketed government money
before will get a new gusher to exploit. But in the history of
Louisiana corruption it will rank as one of the more crude eras of
graft. Even the Long brothers would have winced at William
Jefferson’s setting up a legal defense fund for his impending graft
trial in the midst of a natural disaster.
