John Fund reports on the swamp of corruption in Louisiana. An excerpt:

Last year, Lou Riegel, the agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans office, described Louisiana’s public corruption as “epidemic, endemic, and entrenched. No branch of government is exempt.”

Louisiana ranks third in the nation in the number of elected officials per capita convicted of crimes (Mississippi takes top prize). In just the past generation, the Pelican State has had a governor, an attorney general, three successive insurance commissioners, a congressman, a federal judge, a state Senate president and a swarm of local officials convicted. Last year, three top officials at Louisiana’s Office of Emergency Preparedness were indicted on charges they obstructed a probe into how federal money bought out flood-prone homes. Last March the Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered Louisiana to repay $30 million in flood-control grants it had awarded to 23 parishes.

Much of the region has long had a relaxed attitude towards corruption. ABC’s Cokie Roberts, whose parents, Hale and Lindy Boggs, both represented New Orleans in Congress, was only half-joking when her first suggestion for speeding reconstruction was releasing convicted former governor Edwin Edwards from prison because he “knows how to get things done.”

One of Louisiana’s finest, Aaron Broussard, made a repeat appearance on Tim Russert’s Meet the Press–and this time Russert was ready for him. Transcript here. Analysis from Bayou Buzz. Wuzzadem’s original deconstruction of Broussard’s myth here.

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