Louisiana SwamplandThe AmSpec details a bit
more of the corruption that lies just beneath the surface:
Take a look at who was browbeating ousted FEMA head Michael Brown during yesterday's Congressional hearing on government relief-effort failures -- William Jefferson, the New Orleans congressman who, underscoring that the city is run by a political class not much different from the criminal class they overlook, is under federal investigation for graft. After Brown rightly called the Louisiana government "dysfunctional," Jefferson exploded, "I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans."
How many media outlets when they report this exchange will also report that Jefferson is under FBI investigation, that the FBI has found money hidden in his freezer, and that he is a loan-defaulting ex-slum lord? Jefferson's lawyer, before the flood, was playing the race card, decrying the federal government's decision to pursue its case in "white" Northern Virginia. Now Jefferson will place himself among the "victims" of alleged indifference by the federal government during the flood: the same federal government that didn't care about you, he will in effect say to his constituents, is persecuting me.
