{"id":1152,"date":"2005-09-26T21:45:31","date_gmt":"2005-09-27T01:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=1152"},"modified":"2005-09-26T21:45:31","modified_gmt":"2005-09-27T01:45:31","slug":"a-swamp-of-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2005\/09\/a-swamp-of-corruption\/","title":{"rendered":"A Swamp of Corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wall Street Opinion Journal<\/a> John Fund Monday, September 26, 2005 <\/p>\n

In Katrina’s wake, Louisiana’s political culture needs a cleanup too.<\/p>\n

Perhaps no footage from Hurricane Katrina was replayed more often than the “Meet the Press” clip of Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La., telling Tim Russert that bureaucrats had “committed murder” in the storm’s aftermath. He sobbed as he told about a colleague’s mother drowning in her nursing home after begging her son on the phone for four days to save her from the rising waters. Talk show host Don Imus said he had never seen such gripping testimony on TV in his life.<\/p>\n

But MSNBC.com later found the story didn’t hold up. Eva Rodrigue, the 92-year-old mother of Thomas Rodrique, the parish’s emergency services director, did drown–but not because federal or state officials failed to rescue her. Mr. Rodrique said his mother died the day of the hurricane because the nursing home’s owners ignored commands to evacuate. The owners are now under indictment for negligent homicide. Mr. Rodrique says his mother never spoke with him, and he can’t explain why his boss, Mr. Broussard, got it so wrong.
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\nMr. Broussard returned to “Meet the Press” yesterday to punch back at critics of his obviously embellished statement. “What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man’s mother’s death?” he roared. When Mr. Russert continued to point out the discrepancies in his account, Mr. Broussard told him “Man, get out of my face” and then said the bureaucrats and officials who failed his region “should be strung up. Those people should be burned at the stake.”<\/p>\n

No state turns out better demagogues than Louisiana–the state that Huey Long ruled with an near-fascistic fist and that inspired the new Sean Penn version of “All the King’s Men” that hits movie theaters this November. While the Bush administration and Congress aren’t in danger of being fried as witches, they better figure out that they and the taxpayers are about to be fleeced like sheep as they ship south $62 billion in emergency aid with few controls or safeguards.<\/p>\n

More will be coming. Last week, Louisiana’s two senators didn’t even blink when they asked the feds for an ultimate total of $250 billion in assistance just for their state. “We recognize that it’s a very high number,” Sen. Mary Landrieu admitted. “But this is an unprecedented national tragedy and needs an unprecedented national response.”<\/p>\n

Even if the total ends up far short of that figure, the opportunity for fraud and waste will be unprecedented. “We’re getting a lot of calls” on emergency aid abuses, reports Gen. Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. Last week, police officers found a treasure trove of food, drinks, chainsaws and roof tarps in the home of Cedric Floyd, chief administrative officer for the Jefferson Parish suburb of Kenner. Mr. Floyd is one of several city workers who will likely be charged with pilfering.<\/p>\n

Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wall Street Opinion Journal John Fund Monday, September 26, 2005 In Katrina’s wake, Louisiana’s political culture needs a cleanup too. Perhaps no footage from Hurricane Katrina was replayed more often than the “Meet the Press” clip of Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La., telling Tim Russert that bureaucrats had “committed murder” in the storm’s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moral-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}