The US Army Corps of Engineers is rightfully bearing a lot of the responsibility for the levee failures in New Orleans, but there are some other “deserving” agencies that are being left out. They are trying to keep a low profile, hope that nobody notices the hand they had in all this disaster. (IMO, a lot of people who were responsible for this mess should be facing charges of negligent homocide.) The other guilty agencies are the Levee Districts — the Orleans and St. Bernard Levee Districts in particular — and the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board.

The Levee Districts in particular are very political, their Boards composed of appointees of the politically powerful (most Levee Board members are appointed by the governor, with lots of input from locally powerful pols). The Levee Districts are cesspools of cronyism, corruption, and incompetence. It is utterly mind-boggling to watch these Boards in action. They need to be abolished, but nobody here has the political will or desire to do it.

The way it is supposed to work, the USACE provides most of the funding and engineering expertise to design and build levees. The Levee Districts provide local matching funds and are tasked with maintaining the levees, and closing the floodgates and valves when a big storm approaches. Books will no doubt be written about this, but the Levee Districts failed miserably. Example: the Levee Districts and the USACE conducted annual levee inspections, which the Levee Districts invariably passed with flying colors, in spite of the fact that there were trees growing in the levees, or right next to floodwalls (this is very bad: trees fall over, leave big holes, water pours through).
With respect to the flood control structures (gates) being constructed at the mouths of the canals (17th Street, Orleans, London Ave.), that is what the USACE originally wanted many years ago, but the S&WB and the Levee Districts fought the Corps, and the now-infamous floodwalls were built instead. Some of the local residents also should share in the blame, as they were adamantly opposed to the eminent domain property seizures that would have provided adequate right-of-ways needed to construct and maintain levees and floodwalls that were up to the task of protecting the city.

There is plenty of blame to go around, I’d just like to see the Levee Districts get their fair share of it.

As I posted on a thread over the weekend, I believe Jefferson is done, without a doubt. Jim Letten is the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and if he is prosecuting this one, Jefferson and a lot of his family are in a world of hurt. Letten is the man most responsible for putting former LA Gov Eddie Edwards behind bars. Good book about it, “Bad Bet on the Bayou”, by a former Times-Picayune reporter whose name escapes me at the moment. Some cashin-the-freezer tales in that book … Jefferson is not even original in that regard. Do I think Jefferson is guilty? Absolutely. I’ve lived in Louisiana long enough to have given up all hope of being represented in Congress by anyone honest. I’ll settle for someone, anyone who is just not so blatantly corrupt. Anyway, Letten is good, very sharp, very straight.
I posted a link yesterday to a local blogger (dangerblond) who gives a run-down on the Jefferson family political ties … it’s starts off talking about the Sporanos, you have to read down the page a bit, but it’s worth a read. The Landieu family is also a big political family down here, if you didn’t already know it, Mitch is Sen. Mary Landrieu’s brother.

We on the left should be proud of our reaction to this. It’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Our instinct is to weigh the evidence and then, if warranted, call for our lawbreakers to step down. Their instinct is to defend, and attack the accusers (be they Democrats, the media, or “rogue district attorneys.”

In other words, we have a morality and an ethical line. They don’t.

This is true to an extent within the party, not just the blogs. Dean’s called for resignation if indicted. Pelosi referred to the Ethics Committee.

I think the important thing is for Democrats to demonstrate that they have no double standard for corruption — and to make sure the public understands that the Republicans and the Corporate Media do.

Yes, and Democrats who do stupid crap like this can expect to find all the details of their investigations laid out from top to bottom, in the mainstream press, unlike Republican malefactors. Needs must; the Administration will lend what help it can to the GOP in the vital mission of gulling the public into believing there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats. All those juicy details about refrigerators full of cash will stick in the min of John Q. Public just fine, much better than the baroque spiderweb of corruption on the other side of the aisle.

Meanwhile, on other matters we’re left to pick over the gristle sticking to Jason Leopold’s bleaching bones.

Sure, it’s good for Democratic offenders to be outed. But must we be so enthusiastic about lapping up and then regurgitating all the carefully prepared dogfood the Bush DoJ has prepared for us?

“William Jefferson not Clinton” or “Frozen Assets.” The scandal is playing out in slow motion (because the crook doesn’t have the decency to resign) so I have been struggling with this question for months.

The failure to do the decent thing and resign is pretty serious in this case as Jefferson represents New Orleans which, you know, needs representation and just had an mayoral election which they could have combined with a congressional election to get a non crook congressman.

Rep. Frozen Assets is scum and can only help the Republic in one way, by giving the Democrats a chance to show (or make it appear) that they really care about fighting corruption more than party affiliation.

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