Impunity & Immunity: Governor Jindal out of control on the coast & at the Capitol

Bobby Jindal says he's not running for president. That's probably because he's too busy acting like a king.

It's been a heady couple of weeks for the Governor of a state mired in a deep fiscal crisis largely of his own making and confronting an epic ecological and economic catastrophe that he had a hand in creating.

Jindal swept into Baton Rouge on the Friday before the final day of the legislative session to declare his support for the Senate version of the budget and House conservatives rolled over and gave him what he wanted. He ignored large majorities in both houses and strong public support for transparency in his office by vetoing a bill (HB 37) that would have made all state records relating to the BP Gulf Gusher available under the state's open records act.

Jindal acted with impunity towards the Legislature and the public with his veto of HB 37. In his veto letter (bottom of the page) to Clerk of the House, Alfred Speer, Jindal added insult to injury by giving a completely bogus explanation of his action:

The Deepwater Horizon incident is a man-made event with responsible parties that will create long-term challenges for the State of Louisiana. This bill would allow BP and other parties with potential liability to the state to obtain information retained by any state agency responding to this tragic event. Such access could impair the state’s legal position both in responding to the disaster that is unfolding and in seeking remedies for economic injury and natural resource damage.

As was pointed out here, attorneys in lawsuits always petition records from the other party. It's called discovery and the state has no power to shield any records from such a process in a court proceeding. Jindal's veto, though, will keep those records out of the court where he is most vulnerable — the court of public opinion, where his high-handedness and disregard for the opinions and views of those outside his immediate circle have created a backlash against him in both houses of the Legislature.

Another veto prospect is HB 1443 which would require legislative involvement and oversight of the privatization contracts for state mental health hospitals. That bill passed by smaller margins than the Gulf Gusher records bill, but it did have the support of a broad bi-partisan coalition of legislators in both houses. Department of Health & Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine all but promised a veto in an attempt to block passage, but neither body would back down.

Jindal displayed so little regard for the Legislature that some of his allies in the House (at least they were allies before the budget deal) tried to sneak provisions into a Senate-passed bill that would have granted immunity from liability for state and political subdivisions for actions taken in the effort to combat the results of the BP Gulf Gusher. Another House amendment in the bill would have eliminated the need for Jindal to veto the Gulf Gusher records bill by protecting them. Senators caught on to what was happening and killed SB 520 and the sneak attacks contained in them.

The reason Jindal might have sought the immunity provision only became evident after the session ended when the U.S. Department of the Interior shut down dredging for Jindal's pet berms project because the state was violating the terms of the permit issued.

Jindal screamed "bureaucratic red tape." The Department of the Interior responded that the state had been told the dredging was not being carried out in compliance with the permit and had dragged its feet in moving the dredging operation to an approved source of sand. The Time-Picayune summed it up in a story that appeared on Wednesday, June 23, two days after the session ended and three days after the attempt to grant Jindal and Nungesser immunity from liability:

Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser criticized the delay Tuesday and asked the federal government to allow the state to continue dredging from the current site as it prepares to move operations to another sand borrow site a mile farther offshore.

But the Obama administration said the state has been unprepared since the beginning, has caused further delay because it did not have the proper pipe available and has continued to ask for more time to shift to the offshore site. According to the Interior Department, it gave the state permission for more than a week to use the closer source of sand while locating the pipe, but that allowing the state to continue dredging could have negative impacts on existing barrier islands.

Jindal and Nungesser risked destroying the fragile island with their dredging ostensibly in order to save the coast from the oil. It is disturbing but consistent with this project that was never the subject of any scientific review and was rammed down the throats of federal regulators by the fear that Jindal or Nungesser — or both — would stroke out if their request for a permit of some kind was not granted. Having received the permit, the Governor, his parish government sidekick and his hand-picked contractor — the Shaw Group (who happens to be a heavy contributor to the Louisiana Republican Party) — immediately proceeded to ignore the terms of that permit.

By the time the dredging was shut down, Jindal had been resisting the federal government's prodding of the state to move its operations for at least a week. That means that Jindal was engaged in resisting the federal government at the very time his liability immunity amendment was inserted on the House side and the attempt was made to sneak it through the Senate.

The senators could not be fooled and Jindal was not able to intimidate the Department of the Interior on the dredging permit, so the work was forced to stop. The immunity question became moot. As is his custom, Jindal ranted and he raved, but the operation was stopped while the dredge was moved.

The New York Times pointed out that Jindal gets petulant when he does not get his way. He's not getting his way much along the coast — nor has he used the tools he's been given to handle the state's portion of the response to the disaster.

For starters, the paper reported, Jindal had gutted the state oil spill coordinator's office — with predictable results.

The state has an oil spill coordinator’s office. Its staff shrank by half over the last decade, and the 17-year-old oil spill research and development program that is associated with the office had its annual $750,000 in financing cut last year. The coordinator is responsible for drawing up and signing off on spill contingency plans with the Coast Guard and a committee of federal, state and local officials.

Some of these plans are rife with omissions, including pages of blank charts that are supposed to detail available supplies of equipment like oil-skimming vessels. A draft action plan for a worst case is among many requirements in the southeast Louisiana proposal listed as “to be developed.”

Initially the state and federal responders worked well together until Jindal started grandstanding.

On May 3, Mr. Jindal went public with his dissatisfaction.

“We kept being assured over and over that they had a plan, that there was a detailed plan, that it was coming; we never got that plan,” he said.

But under the law, oil spill experts said, there are only two kinds of government plans pertaining to spills, and the state is partly responsible for both.

Jindal had met the enemy and it was himself. Still, he insisted on blaming the federal government.

More evidence emerged that Jindal's frequent displays of public outrage were coming at the expense of the steps he should have been taking to effectively respond to the catastrophe.

CBS discovered that Jindal has not used all the resources at his disposal to fight the encroachment of oil into coastal waters. Specifically, the network reported that Jindal had not called out all of the National Guardsmen that President Obama had authorized him to use in the clean up.

According to the network, Jindal offered a tart response to that story. As posted at Pro Publica, the response from Jindal's spokesman doe not respond to the point of the CBS story but is filled with continued criticism of the federal government. Jindal apparently believes that the best defense is a good offense.

Jindal has left the business of governing the state to others in Baton Rouge. He's been bounding along the coast from microphone to camera to microphone for almost 60 days. In front of cameras, complaining about the federal government's inability to respond to his every whim, Jindal has felt empowered. He has not had to hassle with legislators or budget holes or people wanting to know what he's really doing besides preening for cameras.

So, he vetoed the spill records law. He'll veto the legislative oversight of his privatization push. But, he's staying on the coast — and near the national spotlight — until the gusher's capped or something really bad results from his berm idea.

The only viable alternative would be for Jindal to turn on the (again) disgraced Senator David Vitter and challenge him in the Republican primary, saying that he has to go to Washington to get more face time on TV this right for Louisiana. Don't forget that the Vitters' post-prostitute press conference near the New Orleans airport took place just 30 minutes prior what was supposed to be the final, triumphant stop on Jindal's announcement tour for his campaign for governor.

Don't think for a minute that Jindal's forgotten that. And, don't think for a second that he's going to stick around Baton Rouge to deal with a $2 billion budget shortfall next year. Been there; done that.

He's out of here. Like Sarah Palin, his day job is holding Jindal back. A fight with Vitter looks like the most attention-grabbing way out.

Thank You, President Obama!

Let the record show that Governor Bobby Jindal's embrace of the protection of Louisiana's coastal environment lasted just about a month.

During a week in which Jindal lost no opportunity to lambaste BP over the damage their still-gushing oil was doing to Louisiana's wetlands and estuaries (and their ineffective response), the governor sent an impassioned letter to President Barack Obama asking that the President lift the six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Louisiana House of Representatives got into the act on Thursday, too, passing a resolution on a vote of 92-0 asking Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to end the just-announced moratorium.


Senator David Vitter (John-DC/LA) declared his undying loyalty to the energy industry and his largest contributors by sending his own letter to the President, asking that the moratorium be ended and that drilling be allowed to continue unless safety violations were found.

The question is: Found by who?

What the President recognizes — as does anyone else who has followed the reporting on this disaster — the oil and gas companies have written their own tickets in the Gulf of Mexico. Consider these items:

• The Department of the Interior's Mineral Management Service was a captured entity of the industry because of the built-in conflict it had of directing lease sales and regulating drilling activity.
• At least three decades ago, the industry obtained a blanket waiver on a requirement to provide environmental impact statements on drilling in the Gulf.
• Some drilling rigs in the deep water fleet in the Gulf did not have 'as-built' blueprints available so that crews could respond effectively to problems on the drilling site.
• There was not a clear chain of command on the Deepwater Horizon that led to an inability to deal with the crisis that emerged on the night of April 20.

Still, apologists for the industry led the charge to let the drilling continue while the damage inflicted by the BP Gulf Gusher continues unabated and it is not clear what went wrong on the rig on that fateful night.

During his trip to Louisiana on Friday, President Obama made clear he is aware of the economic cost of the moratorium but that there is no safe way for deep water drilling to continue until what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon is known and corrective measures are in place to ensure that something like this does not happen again.

"As difficult as it may be, it's important for us to do this right, because if we don't do it right, then what you could end up seeing is an even worse impact on the oil industry down here, which is so important to so many jobs," the President said.

Obama said everyone in the meeting agreed that safety is paramount.

"They did ask: Can we do it faster?'' he said. "And what I said to them was the same thing that I said to (Bob) Graham and (William) Reilly, which is, you do it as fast as it takes to do it right.''

Obama appointed Graham, a former Florida senator, and Reilly, a former chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, to head a presidential commission probing the Gulf oil spill. He said although the commission has six months for the investigation, that doesn't mean it has to use the entire time.

"If they can front-load some of the analysis of what went wrong and can do that more quickly than six months, let me know. Don't hold the results," the President said.

No Going Back to BBP (Before BP)

Essentially, the President is saying that business as usual is over in the Gulf of Mexico. Fishermen and their families have recognized this. The energy industry is going to have to come to grips with this. The politicians, well, they can keep posturing and taking money from those companies, but the old game of conflating our state's interests as being the same as the energy industry's are over. Things like this make it unmistakably clear.

There can be no going back to "Before BP" thinking where every permit was approved and every project rubber stamped.

The concern about the moratorium is on the economic impact it will have. The temporary loss of oil and gas industry jobs is not a trivial concern but neither were the potential environmental and economic impacts of a Gulf Gusher like the one currently under way. It was the industry and their apologists who downplayed — yes, trivialized — those concerns.

Now that a catastrophe far worse than anyone had predicted is unfolding it is pretty hard to feel much sympathy for the industry that paid lip service to the environmental impact of their work, down played safety concerns and ignored the risks associated with deep water drilling.

The industry's accountability moment has arrived and they want to skip the test.

What makes the President's clarity so stark is that most of our political leadership has long been — and still remains — in the back pocket of the energy industry. Back in the 1980s, when oil and gas exploration was at its peak in Louisiana, it fed our families, it funded our government and it bankrolled out politicians.

Three decades later, industry employment has been shrinking and energy revenue accounts for a smaller percentage of government funding. But energy industry bankrolling of politicians has remained constant.

Following the Energy Money

Let's look at the campaign records of each of the four leading Louisiana political actors involved with dealing with the BP Gulf Gusher: Governor Jindal, Senator Vitter, Congressman Charlie Melancon, and Senator Mary Landrieu.

There was a time before his 2007 election as governor that then-Congressman Bobby Jindal was fighting with Senator Landrieu for credit for opening that section of the Gulf of Mexico to deep water drilling that is now the spot from where BP's oil continues to gush. Have not heard much from either on that issue of late. One can only assume that they are now each perfectly willing to let the other take credit for putting this area into production.

Jindal did pretty well with the energy industry as a congressional candidate, even managing to get a contribution from BP before his run for governor.

Senator Vitter is a leading flack for the industry, owing in no small measure the hefty sums of money he's raised from the energy industry over his various federal campaigns.

Congressman Melancon's emotional investment in the disaster unfolding in his district is probably fed by the fact that he has good friends on both sides of the issue — fishermen and energy people. Charlie is clearly torn on this issue.

Senator Landrieu continues to champion the industry, acknowledging its importance to the state's economy. However, the Senator continues to view this in terms of a transactional relationship — that is, production should be allowed to continue (albeit safely) and the state should get more money for the risks it is taking. Any fair minded accounting of the damage being inflicted on Louisiana now would have to put Louisiana on the short end of the deep water drilling transaction. The hundreds of millions of dollars the Senator won for the state back in 2006 that she now wants to see given to the state sooner than was scheduled, is inadequate.

There is not enough money to offset what is being lost in the Gulf and on Louisiana's coast now.

Interestingly, the Senator cites NASA's moratorium on manned space flight after the Challenger accident. That moratorium lasted 32 months and fewer people were killed and that disaster did not include anything like the ecological and economic catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf now. Put in that perspective, the calls for the President to lift the moratorium before the causes of the Deepwater Horizon accident are known and remedial steps recommended and taken are craven even by Louisiana political standards.

Oh, and the problem of divided loyalties is not limited to elected officials. It affects the courts, too.

Leading Hypocrites: Jindal and 'Em

But the award for hypocrisy on this issue must be shared by Jindal and Republican members of the Louisiana House of Representatives.

First, the Governor: In his letter to the President and Secretary Salazar, Jindal cites the potential that the moratorium "will result in a loss of 3,000 to 6,000 Louisiana jobs in the next 2-3 weeks and potentially over 10,000 Louisiana jobs within a few months."

Members of the House took every opportunity to bash the President during their discussion of a resolution calling for an end to the just-declared moratorium. Like Jindal, the legislators — particularly Republican legislators — decried the loss of jobs that would result from the imposition of this moratorium.

The next day, those same House members sat for hours and voted in lock-step fashion to pass a state budget that will result in the loss of hundreds if not thousands of state jobs and they did so without any hint of irony, remorse or regret.

And they are not done. The budget being passed will not meet revenue projections and more cuts will have to be made. But, that's OK with Jindal and 'Em so long as they don't have to tax the top income brackets of the state.

With larger deficits looming down the road, the plan to close the LSU Hospital System is moving forward which will throw still more thousands of workers out of jobs. More higher education cuts will follow, meaning the loss of still more decent paying jobs.

What is clear is this: the only jobs that matter to Jindal and 'Em are jobs that damage our environment, wreck our coast, and put poorly educated Louisiana workers in highly dangerous jobs run by people who don't care about their safety and well-being. Jindal and 'Em people can't do enough to generate these kinds of employment opportunities while crushing jobs of people got good educations, worked to improve our state and whose 'crime' was thinking they could do this honorable work as employees of the state of Louisiana.

Jindal and 'Em's Medicaid cuts eliminate jobs in the private sector as well. Yet, all they are crying about now is the loss of jobs in the oil patch. Maybe the real reason these guys are crying about the moratorium is that Chouests, the Bollingers and their oil field marine service companies might not be able to contribute as much money to their campaigns next year?

Whatever the reason, Jindal and 'Em have amply proven that Louisiana jobs are by no means sacred to them.

Dick Did It: Cheney's Oily Gulf Legacy

Finally, the reason that President Obama's principled stand on the moratorium is such a shock to the oil patch is that for eight years, they really got their way with Vice President Dick Cheney setting the policies and the tone for the Bush administration's dealings with the energy industry.

Cheney, as you may recall, selected himself as George W. Bush's vice presidential nominee then he retired as CEO of Halliburton. Cheney convened a secretive energy advisory panel, the details of who was on it and what they recommended remain secret to this day.

A look at the legislative and regulatory agenda that flowed from those meetings early in the second Bush's first term pretty much lays it out: give the industry what it wants, ramp up our usage of oil and gas and scrap environmental regulations where they get in the way.

Check out the two links in the first paragraph of this section. It's all there. The BP Gulf Gusher is the logical outcome of Cheney's policy initiatives.

Billy Tauzin did yeoman work for Cheney and the industry trying to get some of this stuff through, but the real dirty work did not get accomplished until Tauzin had left Congress.

And, while the Gulf disaster continues to play out in coming months, years, decades, keep an eye on northwest Louisiana where the Haynesville trend gas find has drawn a lot of drilling activity. Hydraulic fracturing is the process used to extract the gas from the shale in that trend. It is a process that Halliburton invented and which Cheney and it was specifically excluded from coverage of the Clean Water Act under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that George W. Bush signed into law in August 2005.

So, Cheney is no longer in office but his policies continue to inflict a high cost on the people of Louisiana, our coast and our way of life.

In the eyes of Cheney and the industry, we have always been expendable.

Thankfully, we have a President now who sees things differently and is standing to protect our interests!

Thank you, President Obama!

If Democrats own healthcare, we can own the Governor's Mansion in 2012

It's not often that Harry Reid and Alan Levine team up on anything, but they did today in laying out the path to Democratic success in Louisiana in the 2011 statewide elections.

That path will be healthcare. Specifically, it will be Governor Bobby Jindal's ideological rigidity on taxes in the face of what will be draconian (criminal?) cuts in healthcare in the state budget over the next two years. With healthcare and higher education still the only funding streams not constitutionally protected and the state facing a billion dollar revenue shortfall, Jindal will force the Legislature to make heavy cuts in both programs.

Last week, the Baton Rouge Advocate carried a story saying the higher education cuts will amount to 60 percent over the next two years. No mention of healthcare, but that's where the bulk of the cuts will be and for two reasons. First, that's where the money is (Medicaid is a $6 billion program). Secondly, no one in the Legislature is lobbying to protect the interests of the poor, the handicapped and those with special needs — the victims of these coming cuts. Oh, the hospitals, nursing homes and doctors will object, but you won't see anything resembling the "Intervention at the Mansion" earlier this year where all of the non-imprisoned former governors got together to tell the Boy Governor that he just could not cut $200 million-plus from higher education.

No notables stood up for Medicaid clients then. And none will do it in the coming session.

They are, in the current world of Louisiana politics, "expendable."

That's what happens when Democrats forget who they are and who they represent and buy into the conceit that they can get elected if they run as 'Republican-lite' candidates. Ultimately, they are not Democrats and their votes show it.

Today, Jindal's DHH Secretary Alan Levine dropped the first of what will be many shoes. According to The Advocate, he announced another round of Medicaid budget cuts made necessary because of rising enrollments in the program and the inability of the department to implement cuts fast enough. Poverty is up in Louisiana. Unemployment is up. The number of companies offering health insurance coverage is falling through the floor.

So, Levine, working within Jindal's "No Taxes for Any Reason" straight jacket, is ordering more cuts. This is, of course, a result of issues in the current fiscal year. This isn't even related to the even bigger cuts that will be needed next year.

Senator Harry Reid handed Louisiana Democrats a gift today by including the Public Option in the bill that the U.S. Senate will debate and vote on in a couple of weeks. Word is that the bill will include an "opt out" clause for states to leave the public option.

Is there any doubt as to which way the Jindal administration and Louisiana Republicans will lurch on this? Levine has been taking part in Louisiana Republican Party workshops talking against healthcare reform. Jindal's path to the national Republican stage requires he follow the party's rejectionist strategy, so he will clearly push to have the state opt out of the public option.

But, here's where it gets interesting.

Depending on the year, anywhere between 17 and 25 working age Louisiana adults are uninsured. In July, the Baton Rouge Business Report quoted a spokesman for BlueCross/BlueShield of Louisiana who said that only 30 percent of Louisiana small businesses offer health insurance to their employees and that the number is falling due to skyrocketing rates.

While no one will speak up for Medicaid patients, surely someone will speak up for the rights of the working uninsured and fight the Jindal administration's expected push to, in fact, opt out of the public option — the path to provide affordable coverage to those working age residents without coverage.

The 2011 statewide elections will be the battle ground where this fight takes place. Jindal, if he follows his current course, will have cut higher education by three-quarters of a billion dollars. He will have cut a billion in healthcare spending, eliminating services, shutting institutions, impacting the families of the disabled, the sick and the infirm.

This election will take place on a re-districted state Legislative map. Every district will be redrawn, and it will be pretty radically different due to post-2005/2008 storm induced population shifts.

Democrats should be easy to distinguish from Republicans. The Republicans will be the ones saying they are sorry for the pain, injury and even deaths their cuts inflicted, but that they had no choice. Democrats will be the candidates motivated by outrage at the callous, depraved disregard for the health and well-being of their fellow citizens.

Jindal will be vulnerable in 2011. He will have revealed that everything said about him in 2003 was true — that his knowledge of numbers is matched only by his inability to see the people behind the numbers in state budgets and programs. The healthcare ads that Kathleen Blanco ran against him in 2003 — those credited with sealing her victory then — will ring prophetic.

This man is devoid of compassion and is blinded by his ambition. Our state is paying — and will pay — a fearful price for his limitations.

But, elections are about changing course.

Harry Reid has just set up Louisiana Democrats to take our state back, to walk it back from the brink.

It will be a hard fight — beating incumbents always is. The Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (David Vitter's homage to Tom DeLay) did not quite succeed in taking over either house of the Legislature, but they succeeded just enough to give Jindal the ability to defeat tax increases that could stave off some of these cuts. They will also work to ensure that the re-districting process is skewed to favor Republicans.

They, too, are setting him up for defeat — and the members of the House and Senate they sent there to do their ideologically driven work.

The world has shifted. They have not changed. The opportunity to oust them is ripening.

Louisiana Democrats Paying the Price of 'The Whittington Tax'

It is the middle of 2009, the middle of a heated national debate about monumental issues like healthcare reform, energy policy, and re-regulating the financial industry. There is an incumbent Republican United State Senator up for re-election next year who has moral and ethical problems that would put even other Republican members of the Senate to shame. The seat is there for the taking (with a fight, no doubt, but more winnable than anyone had expected it to be after Vitter won re-election in 2004).

We have a Republican Governor who trashed federal stimulus spending while bragging about the state's economic performance — which has been fueled by years of federal disaster relief dating back to the storms of 2005 and those since. That same governor is in the process of dismantling the public health delivery system by shutting down public hospitals — a long-cherished dream of Republicans and a mission that Jindal has pursued since his days working for Mike Foster.

But, the Louisiana Democratic Party is no where to be found in any of this. Not standing up for our President. Not working with candidates to develop a strategy to take Vitter's seat. Not pointing out Jindal's budgetary hypocrisy (fueled by his apparently incurable case of Blind Ambition). Not working with legislators and local government leaders to deal with the upcoming reapportionment of political districts after the 2010 Census.

The party's absence is directly attributable to the person who sits as chairman, Christopher Whittington. The actions of the executive director Whittington hired as part of his re-election bid has made the party the target of at least two lawsuits.

The highly regarded communications director left shortly after the executive director did.

The entire staff of the party consists of two people, neither of which has any executive power. They are merely at the party's Government Street headquarters in Baton Rouge to turn the lights on and off, answer the phone and get the mail.

The Jefferson/Jackson Dinner in Baton Rouge two weeks ago was a farce. James Carville spoke, but for less than 10 minutes. There were no statewide elected officials in attendance. Senator Mary Landrieu was not there. There were about seven members of the state Legislature in attendance. The event started late and ended early. The speaking ended before 8 p.m. Had Rep. Karen Carter Peterson not given a stem-winder of an address that out-lasted Carville's talk, the event would have lasted less than 30 minutes.

Word is now that Whittington has said that the party will not hire an executive director at this critical time, that "we are going to take a vacation from that."

Imagine that. A political organization taking a vacation from political work.

Anyone who has watched Whittington fight to keep his job while letting the party's work wither will not find this as a surprise. Whittington's fight has always been about keeping control of the party apparatus so that he and his cronies can keep control of the money and the favors that flow through the state party during election cycles.

The crony list includes lawyers, consultants and various hangers-on.

Meanwhile, the party does not do the basic work of crafting a message, registering voters, and winning elections.

But, that's OK with Whittington because, again, this is not about politics. It's about control of money and favors.

There are people on the Democratic State Central Committee and even on the party's executive committee whose efforts guaranteed Whittington's re-election who are now said to be disenchanted with the course things have taken. That course is no different now than it was when they worked and voted for Whittington; he is still playing the same game only now those former allies find that Whittington does not care about the party and its fate. They are shocked! Shocked I tell you! That this petty little man has turned on them.

The sad fact is that the party's constitution and by-laws are such a shambles that any attempt to oust Whittington is a waste of time and effort. He and his various legal advisors twist the interpretation of those rules to make them say whatever it is that serves Whittington's puprposes.

This is not a political organization. This is not a political party. It is a club run by an ever-shrinking group of insiders who are determined to hold control of the organization for the sole purpose of demonstrating that they can.

Every additional day that Chris Whittington holds the otherwise meaningless title of "Chairman" of the Louisiana Democratic Party is further proof of his complete and total disregard for the well-being of the party and its interests.

Chris Whittington has brought this party to the bring of ruin. Why is he holding on? Why is the state central committee letting him?

Katrina, Rita and the GOP Crony Capitalism

I'm taking part in a two-day NOLA/Gulf Blogathon over at DailyKos. This is my diary from Thursday, April 17.

You can click the headline to go to the DailyKos post.

• • • • •

Hurricane season is about six weeks away. The Mississippi River is very high due to heavy rains in the MidWest. The Bonne Carre Spillway has been opened for the first time in 11 years to let some river water flow through Lake Pontchartrain into the Gulf of Mexico.

Things are tensing up down along the Gulf Coast. Less than three years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck and the levees failed in New Orleans, nature is reminding us of what a tenuous hold we have on the lives we've created and are still rebuilding for ourselves down here.

We don't want to — and can't — go through another disaster again. Especially with the current administration in place. Real help will not come.

The hard and, yes, bitter lessons learned along the coast over the past two-and-a-half years are going to come in handy for the rest of the country it focuses on the coming federal elections.

The core lesson is this: Republican crony capitalism doesn't fix anything that's broken. It's all about them taking care of their own while the rest of us are left on our own. The proof is being lived out daily on the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi.

The federal response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita should tell Americans all they need to know about modern Republican crony capitalism as practiced by the Bush/Cheney administration and its heir wannabe John McCain.

There are three places that illustrate the model and its impact on the recovery: Biloxi and Pascagoula, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The better known places show the business model in all its awfulness. Cameron, in a way, demonstrates how far the GOP has lost touch with its roots and its basic decency in less than 20 years.

Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it hit the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana and, later, the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The blows it delivered there were natural disasters — the combined effect of wind and storm surge. The floods in New Orleans were the result of levee failures caused by a relatively weak storm. Winds in Lake Pontchartrain never exceeded 90 miles per hour. As we should all know by now, the cause of the floods in New Orleans were defective levees built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

So, what happened in New Orleans was a man-made disaster.

LET 'EM EAT CHIPS

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has been trying his best to turn the natural disaster of Katrina into a man-made disaster by diverting federal housing money from low income families into projects like improvements at the the Port of Pascagoula that could include luxury condos.

Scandal-plagued HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson granted Barbour's request to use $600 million in money appropriated for low income housing for use at the port instead of on housing. The result is evident. A drive along US 90 on the Mississippi coast reveals freshly repaired casinos standing a parking lot or two away from houses that are still in ruins.

Oh, and one of the scandals helping drive Jackson from office deals with him allegedly giving preferential treatment to a contractor for work on public housing-related contracts in post-Katrina New Orleans.

In a speech to the Delta Regional Authority annual meeting in 2007, Barbour said his wife was his "eyes and ears" on the Gulf Coast in the weeks and months immediately after the storm hit. Other members of his family, it appears, were his wallet. Barbour didn't spend much personal time on the coast, apparently only finding time to travel down there when George W. came looking for a photo-op.

Compare that to (now former) Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, who actually went to the Louisiana Superdome in the first days after the levees broke in New Orleans. She was there. She also took extraordinary measures to ensure that federal dollars sent to Louisiana were used for their intended purpose — disaster relief and the recovery of our citizens.

As Michael "Heck of a job, Brownie" Brown pointed out, Blanco worked under the additional burden of being a Democratic governor seeking help from a highly partisan Republican administration. The storms and their aftermaths eventually cost Blanco her job, or at least made her decide not to seek re-election.

HOOKED ON POWER

Republican opportunism in Katrina's wake in New Orleans arrived in full force about the time the water was finally pumped out of the city (almost 60 days after the storm).

The first hint of what was to come was when New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appointed Bush Pioneers Joe Canizaro and Boysie Bollinger to head up his Bring New Orleans Back Commission.

But, the real power grab began in December of 2005 when U.S. Senator David Vitter and his wife Wendy convened a group of Vitter's biggest contributors to a meeting to launch an effort to turn the diaspora of the poor and African Americans out of Orleans Parish into a political transformation of Louisiana politics.

The result of that meeting was the formation of the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM). It was led by Canizaro and funded by a core group of other Republicans (some, though not all, from Louisiana) who committed to raise $2.5 million to try to elect a Republican majority in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

That Canizaro and Bollinger were never committed to the rebuilding of the city was exemplified by Bollinger's decision to shut down his shipyard in Algiers and shift the work and the jobs to other of his operations across the coast. And, he collected recovery money in the process!

Modeled after Tom DeLay's criminal enterprise, Texans for a Republican Majority, the LCRM was raising barrels full of money until Vitter's links to prostitutes were made public in the summer of 2007.

The LCRM did not succeed in winning Republican control of the Louisiana House, although they came close enough for Democrats to hand the speakership to a Republican after Bobby Jindal won election as governor.

The LCRM and its members are committed to defeating Mary Landrieu and will definitely be active fighting to defeat the U.S. Senator who has done more to ensure that the recovery in Louisiana gets the federal financial help it needs.

Again, as in Mississippi, the recovery is viewed as nothing more than an opportunity for Republicans to advance business and political agendas that have little or nothing to do with alleviating the suffering and mitigating the losses that resulted from the disasters that prompted the relief efforts.

NOBLESSE OBLIGE & CONNECTIONS

In Cameron Parish, though, the proof of how far the Republican Party has fallen is evidence by the new hospital there. South Cameron Memorial Hospital was destroyed by Hurricane Rita two weeks after Katrina hit eastern Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The hospital is located a mile or so off the Gulf of Mexico in what is the community of Creole.

Cameron Parish is the largest parish in Louisiana in terms of area. Prior to Rita, there were about 10,000 residents in this vast parish that is home to fishermen, offshore oil workers, and now liquified natural gas plants.

Knowing that access to healthcare was essential to rebuilding the devastated parish, local officials committed to working to get FEMA and the Louisiana Recovery Authority to support rebuilding the hospital. Both entities provided financing to "restore" what had been destroyed. That meant that no new services could be added; what had been destroyed could be replaced, but there could be no expansion of services.

The federal assistance was also conditional on residents in the parish agreeing to tax themselves to ensure that there was operating revenue for the hospital if it was to be rebuilt. That tax passed overwhelmingly in 2006.

Still, there was a shortage of money to build the hospital, so residents turned to the Bush/Clinton Katrina Fund for help. All of the money raised by the fund was earmarked for Katrina-related recovery and restoration efforts. But, locals made their plea to former President George H.W. Bush who used his personal connections to bring help to the residents of Cameron Parish.

At the hospital grand opening last month, it was announced that Bush Sr. had gotten the government of Kuwait to provide the $2 million needed to complete the hospital rebuilding project. There was nothing in that effort for Bush Sr. And, so far as can be determined, there was no benefit to any of the contractors involved other that the work they were obligated to perform.

Cameron Parish has their hospital back due in no small part because Bush Sr. still has in him that sense of decency and empathy — yes, noblesse oblige — that the current batch of craven Republicans so evidently lack. The decency gap between Bush Sr. and George W. is in itself the story of the core of the story of what has happened to the Republican Party and to this country.

It is evident in the federal response to the credit crisis: bail out the investment banks, the home builders, and other lenders, but leave homeowners and their families to fend for themselves.

In the GOP's America, we are on our own. The rest of the world saw it in the wake of Katrina and Rita. Americans may have forgotten. The people on the Gulf Coast know it now. The rest of the country is getting ready for the refresher course.

Mike Stagg

Can She Get a Witness!??!

Now that Republican Bobby Jindal has been elected governor, it will be interesting to see how long Louisiana Republicans who, after all, posed as the reform party in the current state elections, will allow the Vitter/Hookers melodrama to continue to play out.

The Times-Picayune (and others) reported on Saturday that Senator David Vitter has been subpoenaed to testify in the D.C. Madam trial that led to the eruption of a full-blown pay-to-play sex scandal for Vitter that apparently stretches all the way back to his days as a state legislator.

Here's how the T-P began its coverage:

WASHINGTON -- Rekindling a scandal Sen. David Vitter hoped had faded, the attorney for the "D.C. Madam" asked Friday for a subpoena to force the Louisiana Republican to testify about his involvement in what prosecutors say was a high-priced prostitution ring.

Montgomery Sibley said he had asked the clerk of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to issue a subpoena to Vitter to testify at a Nov. 28 hearing that could spill salacious details of the scandal that has captivated the nation's capital for more than a year.

Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the hearing to determine whether Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 50, can proceed with her breach-of-contract lawsuit against a woman she once employed as an escort. Palfrey said she signed contracts with all her escorts promising they wouldn't do anything illegal and that Paula Neble broke it by engaging in prostitution.

For those of you keeping score at home, Vitter responded to the news of the D.C. scandal on the day that Governor-elect Jindal was making his candidacy announcement swing across the state. Their New Orleans news conferences nearly overlapped. Candidate Jindal quickly abandoned Vitter even though the Senator had apparently been helpful in Jindal's election as Vitter's successor as congressman from the First District.

The Vitter scandal undermined the political offspring of the Senator and his wife Windy, the LCRM, whose fund-raising took a hit during the summer months after the pay-to-play scandal broke. Out-0f-state interests took up some of the slack, but most of the original Louisiana LCRM contributors have stayed away since the scandal broke. Two of the originals — Dieter Hugel and Mockler Beverage — recently returned to the fold, according to LCRM campaign finance reports.

The challenge that Vitter's problem present to Louisiana Republicans are difficult to overstate.

Start with the blatant hypocrisy that flows from Vitter's posturing as a family values Republican. Whoring is not exactly compatible with that. The fervor for the Jindal campaign may have temporarily subsumed whatever Republican outrage might exist in response to the Vitter scandal (and the fact that had Vitter resigned, a Democratic governor would have been able to name his replacement). But, with Governor-elect Jindal vowing to call a special session on ethics immediately after his inauguration, the image of the junior Senator on the witness stand testifying about his business dealings with an 'escort service' is hardly the kind of atmospherics the party and/or the new governor will want to have to deal with.

With Jindal in the Mansion, the embarrassment caused by Vitter's sexual proclivities will be all the harder for some in the party to defend because Republican Governor Jindal would name a replacement in the (unlikely) event that Vitter would choose to step down.

Then there is the little matter that Vitter's problems were well known to his biggest financial backers all the way back in the days of his 2004 run for the Senate. What does that say about the commitment of those folks to the family values platform they proclaimed with such vigor?

So, the next few weeks will be very interesting. It seems that the Vitter scandal is eating away at the Louisiana Republican Party's euphoria even as it celebrates strong gains on the statewide level.

Can the party claiming the mantel of reform and ethics live at least four more years with a United States Senator with a court-documented record of at least a business relationship with what prosecutors allege is a prostitution ring?

We're about to find out.

Vitter renews campaign to turn Legislature into the best little whorehouse in Baton Rouge

The Republican sweep in last week's election was so powerful that its wake was able to draw David Vitter out of hiding!

The Times Picayune and the Baton Rouge Advocate carried stories today on the Saturday meeting of the Republican Party State Central Committee which, interestingly enough, could not muster a quorum even in the wake of their success last week.

The keynote speaker was disgraced freshman Senator David Vitter, founder of the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM), there to beat on his fellow Republicans to raise more money to buy a Republican majority in the Louisiana House of Representatives and to close the gap on Democrats in the Louisiana Senate.

Vitter, according to the papers, was trying to raise $125,000 to help 16 Republicans in run-0ff races against Democrats in House races and a handful of Senate races with similar cross-party match-ups.

Vitter didn't mention the LCRM, but that group should have close to half a million dollars to spend on those races, too. So, the Senator was working the room for effect — 1) to rehabilitate his image; and 2) to demonstrate that he can still put Republicans on the spot by making a money call when the media is present.

Vitter's cash appeal to Republican Party leaders was loaded with irony as it was his own sex-for-money scandal that sharply curtailed the LCRM's abilty to raise money in Louisiana.

Under Louisiana's campaign finance laws, the LCRM will not have to file a report that includes spending figures until 10 days prior to the November 17 election. Based on the prodigious clip at which they continued to raise money in the final month leading up to the October 20 primary, and the extensive direct mail campaign the group waged in the final week of that cycle, the LCRM could have as much as $750,000 on hand for the run-off.

That, however, would not include payments to the consulting and media firms sucking at the LCRM teat, which will likely draw down the LCRM cash on hand numbers considerably.

So, the party that ran on a platform that consisted largely of the word "ethics" has issued an all points bulletin for dollars (from any and all sources) to help it win control of the Louisiana House. No irony there.

Talking LCRM on Blue Mondays

Stephen Handwerk, producer of the Lafayette Democrats' Blue Mondays series on Acadiana Open Channel, invited me into the studio to discuss the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM).

The result is the program that aired on Monday, October 15.

How 'bout "Whoremongers for Fiscal Responsibility"?

Disgraced Senator David Vitter (JOHN-DC/LA) delivered a speech at a Republican policy (oxymoron?) lunch on Tuesday, in which he urged his fellow party members to "rebrand" themselves as a means of regaining public trust.

The Hill's Under the Dome blog provided this description:

Only seven days earlier, he had delivered a heartfelt apology at the same weekly meeting. Fellow Republicans responded with thunderous applause, and most refused to tell reporters how Vitter had addressed his forced public admission that he had committed a “serious sin” and was linked to an alleged prostitution ring.

So just imagine their confusion when Vitter scrambled to his feet a week later. Would he apologize again? Had he committed some new sin?

But no. Instead, he launched into a speech about his thoughts on “rebranding” the party by reclaiming the fiscal conservative mantle.

Yes, that’s right: Vitter, on improving the Republican image.

This time, his colleagues held the applause.

So, does this mean Vitter will be driving a harder bargain in future negotiations with escort services?

True to his hypocritical ways, Vitter has been a staunch defender of the reckless tax-cut-and-spend policies of the Bush administration in the House and the Senate (does that make him a switch hitter?). Now, as a member of a minority party that appears hell-bent on becoming a still-smaller minority party thanks to its refusal to break with the incredibly unpopular policies of an administration that has used war as an excuse for a grab for monarchical power, Vitter proposes that he and his fellow Republicans pretend as if the profligate years of their lack of oversight of the Bush administration never happened.

Like the year J.R. Ewing was shot on the television soap opera "Dallas," Vitter would have us believe that the nightmare we have all lived through has actually been a dream.

What, exactly, is David Vitter taking these days to come up with such ideas?

CREW slaps Vitter with Ethics Charge

The Lafayette Daily Advertiser's website has an Gannett News story this afternoon reporting that the watchdog group Citizens for Reponsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed an ethics complaint against Senator David Vitter.

Here's CREW's press release:

19 Jul 2007 // Washington, D.C. – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Senate Ethics complaint against Senator David Vitter (R-LA) asking for an investigation into whether he violated the Senate Rules of Conduct by soliciting for prostitution.

On July 9, 2007, it was revealed that Sen. Vitter's telephone number was included in the so-called "D.C. Madam," Deborah Jeane Palfrey's, list of client telephone numbers. Sen. Vitter confirmed that he had sought Ms. Palfrey's services, saying in a statement, "this was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible."

Two other women also have alleged that Sen. Vitter engaged the services of prostitutes. According to Jeanette Maier, the "Canal Street Madam," Senator Vitter visited a New Orleans, Louisiana brothel several times in the mid-1990s and a woman who worked as a prostitute under the name of Wendy Cortez has claimed that several years ago, Senator Vitter was a regular client of hers.

Engaging the services of a prostitute violates both District of Columbia and Louisiana criminal law.

The Senate Ethics Manual provides that certain conduct may be improper even though it does not violate specific Senate rules or regulations. Such conduct has been characterized as "improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate." This rule is intended to protect the integrity and reputation of the Senate as a whole. The Ethics Manual explains that "improper conduct" is given meaning by considering "generally accepted standards of conduct, the letter and spirit of laws and Rules..."

Whether or not Sen. Vitter is ultimately adjudicated to have broken any criminal laws, the Senate may still discipline him for improper conduct as it has other members in the past.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today, "Senator Vitter's solicitation of at least one prostitute was not merely, as he has stated, 'a serious sin,' it was a violation of criminal law." Sloan continued, "The Senate Ethics Committee should commence an investigation into Senator Vitter's conduct and hold him accountable."

Gannett said Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate ethics committee, declined comment.

Bollinger: LCRM Mission Unchanged by Vitter Credibility Crisis

Lest there be any doubt, Senator David Vitter's credibility crisis will not deter the organization he and his wife front from pursuing its appointed mission.

The Shreveport Times has the story:

The Republican effort to win a majority in at least the Louisiana House will continue with or without Vitter, said New Orleans shipbuilder Boysie Bollinger, who, along with Vitter and New Orleans developer Joe Canizaro, founded the Committee for a Republican Majority as a political action committee.

The committee's most recent financial disclosure report filed in June showed it had $736,000 in cash on hand after having spent $72,000 during the two-month period ending June 4.

Bollinger said the committee will continue its work.

"The mission is the same," said Bollinger, reached en route to Australia on a business trip. "We are tying to get a Republican majority in the House."

The actual name is The Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority which is modeled after two organizations founded by disgraced former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — Americans for a Republican Majority and Texans for a Republican Majority. DeLay's 'American' committee contributed heavily to Vitter's congressional campaigns before the former bug killer found himself in trouble with the law in Texas, where he now faces charges of violating campaign finance laws in that state.

Wendy Vitter has a letter on LCRM's front web page saying that the organization was formed by "concerned citizens" but does not mention that one of those citizens and co-founders is Texas home builder (and DeLay fund contributor) Bob Perry who believes the mission of LCRM was worthy of a $100,000 contribution.

The Vitters' financial model for this operation probably grows from the Senator's engagement with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Abramoff, who contributed to Vitter's senate campaign in appreciation for the then-congressman's help in defeating a casino license for the Jean Choctaw Tribe (thus benefiting Abramoff's other Indian tribe clients), operated an extensive influence peddling operation funded in large measure by the fees he charged Indian tribes to protect their gambling interests.

No doubt, part of the LCRM's call for change will include a cry for ethics reform. Claims to ethical standards coming from the likes of the Vitters, Bob Perry and Boysie Bollinger (read about how his company botched the U.S. Coast Guard fleet modernization here) are part and parcel of the dishonesty at the core of the various Abramoff/DeLay/Vitter working models.

Getting that word out to voters in coming months will be the challenge of this election cycle.

Colbert: Vitter a 'Victimcrite'

As usual, Mr. Colbert speaks for himself.

Campbell Talks Policy While Jindal Blathers

Louisiana Public Service Commissioner and Democratic candidate for governor Foster Campbell spoke in Lafayette on Tuesday. His detailed accounting of his policies contrasted sharply with the hollow rhetoric of Republican Guvna Wannabe Bobby Jindal.

Here's a bit from the Lafayette Daily Advertiser's coverage:

Former state Sen. Foster Campbell, D-Bossier City, who stopped Tuesday in Lafayette for a meeting with the Lafayette Kiwanis Club, said that pushing for ethics reform is fine, but "that won't solve the state's problems."

The next governor needs to have plans to address poverty, coastal erosion, infrastructure backlogs, education and health-care issues, Campbell said, adding that he has solutions for each of them.

He said he believes his plan to charge oil and gas companies a 6 percent "processing" fee for moving their product in pipelines throughout the state - as opposed to the current system that dates back to 1921 and taxes only oil and gas taken from state lands - would pave the way toward solving a lot of the problems.

It also would open up the possibility of abolishing the state income tax, which would drop $3 billion dollars into the laps of Louisiana's citizens.

Campbell said U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner, the front-runner and biggest proponent of ethics reform, has made ethics his focus because he lacks a policy of his own.

Jindal mentioned ethics at every stop on his Monday campaign swing across the state — right before he refused all comment on the immoral and possibly illegal behavior of his erstwhile friend and mentor, Senator David Vitter.

Hasn't this been the problem with Jindal and other DC Republicans — an inability to address inconvenient truths? How can Jindal say he'll lead on ethics when he can't even deliver a straight comment on the actions of a disgraced fellow Republican?

Acadiana Counters the Filibuster

Lafayette and Acadiana joined with MoveOn.org members at about 130 sites on Tuesday evening to calling on Republicans in the U.S. Senate to end their obstruction to changes in U.S. policy in Iraq. The event was held in front of the John Shaw Federal Courthouse in downtown Lafayette. It drew about 20 participants including Republicans, veterans, members of Pax Christi, and, of course, members of MoveOn.org.

We also drew three counter-counter-filibusterers (people who support the war). As the event progressed, they ended up being badly outnumbered.

It was a very moving event and one that drew significant media attention. Here's the story from The Advocate. Here's the story from The Daily Advertiser.

Our target was disgraced Louisiana Senator David Vitter. Vitter pretended to work in Washington on Tuesday, being hounded by the media for answers to questions he refuses to take.

If this man is serious about redeeming his political soul, one possible path would be to demonstrate that he is willing to put the good of the country ahead the good of his party and stop defending a failed policy in Iraq that has destabilized South Asia and the Middle East, turned Iraq in to a recruiting weapon for Al Queida, and imperiling the viability of the Army and Marines, as well as the safety of the country.

Other Republicans are listening. Vitter has yet to demonstrate that he cares for anything but saving his own skin.

Jindal flees Shreveport questions about Vitter

The Shreveport Times reports today that Guvna Wannabe (Bobby Jindal) resolutely refused to even acknowledge reporters questions about his politically-damaged former mentor and friend Senator David Vitter.

Here's the relevant passages from today's Times coverage:

U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal maintained his silence about U.S. Sen. David Vitter, an ardent Jindal supporter, during Jindal's gubernatorial campaign kickoff visit to Shreveport on Monday.

Jindal spent about 30 minutes at Shreveport's Downtown Airport. Following a brief speech outlining his goals, he chatted with well-wishers. About 100 people, among them local politicians and candidates, attended the kickoff.

Vitter, who is at the center of a sex scandal, endorsed Jindal in February. Vitter's endorsement letter, and a blog post about it, appeared on Jindal's Web site at least through the first week of July. Since news that Vitter's phone number was found on the phone list of a Washington, D.C., madam broke, both items — and links to other endorsements — are a
bsent from the site.

Vitter also supported Jindal's 2003 bid for governor, while Jindal endorsed Vitter's bids for office since 2003.

Jindal ignored reporters' questions about his take on Vitter's situation but spoke enthusiastically about his goals to change Louisiana. After delivering sound bites in response to a television reporter's questions, he headed for a waiting airplane and similar stops in Lake Charles, Lafayette and New Orleans, striding away from two reporters who followed to ask about Vitter.

Jindal's stonewalling the Vitter scandal in Shreveport took place just about the same time as Vitter's staff issued the call for the "5:05 p.m." photo-op (can't call it a press conference when he didn't answer any questions).

So, what do we know today? We know that Jindal is running for govenor (a 'secret' as poorly kept from the public as Vitter's hypocrisy was from his top Republican backers). And, we know he's running away from Vitter.

As the calls for Vitter's resignation spread within the Republican Party, Jindal's ability to keep his distance from Vitter's scandal will diminish — or, the energy required to do so will detract from Jindal's ability to run an effective campaign.

Vitter to Rain on Jindal's Parade

The love is apparently gone from the once-ardent political love affair between David Vitter and Bobby Jindal.

Today, Jindal launched his gubernatorial campaign with a whirlwind flight schedule across the state, committed to ignoring the problems of his former friend and mentor Vitter resulting from the now-Senator's hypocrisy on the issue of family values.

The Associated Press reported that Jindal launched his tour vowing to ignore Vitter and focus on Louisiana's future.

Nice try, Bobby!

The junior senator from Louisiana will have none of it.

Shortly after noon today, Vitter's office announced that he will hold a 5:05 p.m. press conference in Metairie, obviously timed to accommodate 5 p.m. news coverage in New Orleans and (presumably) around the state.

As luck would have it, Vitter's press conference will fall between Jindal's Lafayette announcement at 3:15 p.m. and his 6 p.m. New Orleans announcement.

Odds are that Vitter's announcement will force coverage of Jindal's swing off the evening newscasts and certainly push coverage of the swing by newspapers off the front pages.

Could the timing of Vitter's press conference be a form of payback for Jindal's lukewarm support of Vitter during the Senator's crisis? Maybe Bobby should have stood a little closer to his man?

Vitter flees Louisiana and his constituents

Republican Senator David Vitter has fled the state. Vitter's office announce Sunday that the Senator had cancelled a scheduled town hall meeting on Monday and had decided to head for what he must believe to be the friendlier confines of his DC apartment and the United States Senate.

Vitter's staff issued a terse, two-sentence statement on Sunday, informing the public and the press that he was cancelling a Monday Town Hall meeting scheduled for the small rural community of Greensburg in St. Helena Parish. The statement did not set a new date for the Greensburg event. It did say that Vitter was heading to Washington, ostensibly to vote on matters pending in the Senate.

Let the record show that, confronted with a collosal and growing political and moral crisis of his own making, the first-term United States Senator with a penchant for public moralizing spent a week in hiding (though he claimed to be in Louisiana) and did not in any way deliver his allegedly sincere apology to Louisiana voters for his actions that led to the scandal that threatens his political future.

The best Vitter has been able to muster has been a couple of statements on the scandal that is consuming his political career as we watch. The first statement was the one admitting his relationship with a Washington DC escort service. The second was the one on Sunday announcing Vitter's intention to duck his constituents and to flee to Washington.

The message from Vitter is clear: the people who elected him to office are not entitled to any answers from him. No, Vitter took a week off from work, spent some time with his family and missed at lease one key vote in the Senate. But, Louisiana voters who sent him to Washington to represent them are not entitled to any more than what he's said in a couple of press releases.

With these actions, Vitter places himself squarely in the Dick Cheney "Accountability is for Suckers" camp of elected officials (calling this "public service" would be to demean the language as much as Vitter has demeaned his office).

It will be interesting to see how Vitter's arrogance plays with voters. Are these the actions of a man asking the public for forgiveness or of a man shooting the public the bird?

Prayers for Vitter: GOP equivalent of 10-foot pole

The answer to the question of "what would Jindal do" (WWJD) about the L'affaire Vitter came Friday when Guvna Wannabe issued what he no doubt thought was a Solomon-like statement on his erst-while mentor and predecessor's peccadillo.

Here's the statement, in full:

"While we are disappointed by Senator Vitter's actions, Supriya and I continue to keep David and his family in our prayers," Jindal said. "This is a matter for the senator to address, and it is our hope that this is not used by others for their own political gain.

Bobby! Where's the love, bro??? I mean, you hustled your family off to Metairie after Vitter announced his intention to run for the Senate. He handed you his seat. He endorsed you for governor in 2003.

Like the old Tonto and Lone Ranger joke, Jindal's apparently trying to put some distance between himself and his ex-climbing buddy. "What do you mean 'we,' kemosabe?"

Also, don't you just love the bit about hoping this "is not being used by others for their own political gain. Mr. Kettle, why are you saying those mean things about Mr. Pot. No, if anyone is going to use the Vitter implosion for their political gain that is Jindal's job.

It'll be fun to watch Jindal dodge reporters' questions about Vitter on his Monday statewide swing formally announcing his candidacy for governor. No reporter worthy of carrying a pen and paper will be able to avoid asking Jindal to clarify his statement on Vitter. After all, Jindal -- like Vitter, has based a substantial piece of his political career on ostentatious moral posturing. How can he possibly be allowed to let matters stand with a 'well, David's in a jam' statement. The man, after all, says he wants to set the moral and ethical tone for the state as Governor.

Then, there is the statement of 7th District Congressman Charles Boustany:

Boustany said, "David and his family are going through a difficult time, and my thoughts and prayers are with him."

Wow! Now, there's a warm embrace — not! Boustany probably speaks in warmer terms about his his wife's uncle than he does about Vitter.

Saying they are praying for Vitter and/or his family is the verbal equivalent of a 10-foot pole being used by a couple of frightened Louisiana Republican congressmen attempting to fend off the taint of Vitter's scandal.

No, no signs of courage or principle (other than survival) among those two.

One Republican who has remained absolutely silent on this matter is one of Vitter's longtime enemies — former Governor Mike Foster. Foster and Vitter clashed bitterly when Vitter was still a member of the Louisiana House. And, it was Vitter's work as a congressman (on behalf of Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed) fighting the Jena Choctaw Tribe's quest for a casino license from the Bureau of Indian Affairs that prompted what appeared to be the last round of the Foster-Vitter wars.

My guess is that Foster's silence is one of deep contentment. If, however, the ex-governor should turn up with an injury any time in the near future it will probably be the result of an over-exuberant celebration of Vitter's self-inflicted wounds.

See Republican Evil, Report No Republican Evil

The story of Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter's serial infidelity and hypocrisy is all over the news.

It's in the main stream media.

It's on the Internet.

It's on the front page of local papers.

It's on local television news.

But it's not on Fox News Louisiana.

Nope. I happened to catch the entire 'news' cast tonight following the Baseball All-Star game (I caught the bottom of the ninth inning).

Not a word about Vitter.

The Lafayette version had a story on armed robberies and another on drug awareness. The state section had a piece on the impact of tax cuts passed by the Legislature and a story on U.S. Senate hearings on the post-storm recovery process.

But, not word of the still-emerging scandal focused on Senator David Vitter's madame mongering while posing as a defender of family values.

It's clear that Fox News Louisiana is here on a mission. Reporting news not favorable to Republicans is not part of that mission.

David Did Canal Street, too!

Louisiana's Family Values Senator, who puts a cash value on the price of — uh — company, now has another former madame claiming him as a customer.

New Orleans NBC affiliate WDSU interviewed former Canal Street Bordello operator Jeanette Maier, who told the station, that Vitter was a customer back in the 1990s. Here's some text:

Jeanette Maier, known as the Canal Street Madam, claimed Tuesday that Sen. David Vitter visited her Mid-City operation beginning in the mid-1990s.

According to Maier, Vitter would pay $300 an hour for services. She would not disclose how many times he came to the Canal Street home, only saying that it was more than once.

"He seems to be one of the nicest men and most honorable men I've ever met," Maier said.

She also said that although some of his visits were at the Canal Street location, others were during fishing trips and other activities with fellow politicians.

"There was more to the business than sex," she said. "There are so many demands made on these people."

The best quote of the still-emerging storm has been a Clinton-era quote by Vitter's wife Wendy about Hillary Clinton's response to her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky. ABC News quotes a Times Picayune article from 1999:

Asked whether she could forgive her husband after an extramarital affair, as Livingston's wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary [Clinton]. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

Wonder if the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority will create a legal defense fund for Mrs. Vitter should she prove to be a woman of her word?