Hey that's our job!

Moseley's description suggests we think about the "comments" scandal at the US Attorney's Office as a coordinated plan to run a sort of online propaganda campaign against federal prosecution targets.

Granted, the online comments don’t mean that Ray Nagin, or the Danziger defendants or Renee Gill Pratt are suddenly innocent. But they raise the question of whether those figures — and numerous others — received a fair trial. If the Danziger defendants were right that the government waged “a secret public relations campaign” on the internet— in other words, if the “lone wolves” did in fact operate as a pack — we’ll have to steel ourselves for a flurry of (grueling) retrials and re-sentencings.

And I think I've figured out the real reason  the political media is so concerned about these activities. It's territorial.  Usually promoting the unquestioned benevolence of federal prosecutors while smearing their targets in the news is their job.

Ain't my fault

Here's a little trip down memory lane to Ray Nagin's 2007 State of the City address.

"It's not our fault that the levees breached that the federal government built," he said, launching into the speech's singular moment of unscripted oratory and rousing the night's only standing ovation. "It's not our fault that we were stranded and left. It's not our fault that the Road Home program has issued only 12 percent of the grants after almost two years. It's not our fault that our water system is leaking today. It's not our fault."

The T-P article failed to note that Nagin was explicitly referencing the brass standard "Ain't my fault" here. As was the case during nearly all of Nagin's extemporaneous moments, I remember cracking up watching it.

Anyway, it crossed my mind again today when I saw this. 

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin asked Thursday for a delay in his corruption trial, scheduled for late October, with his attorney arguing that he needs the opportunity to fully review reports by a Justice Department special prosecutor into the anonymous online commenting of two former high-ranking New Orleans prosecutors.

The request came two days after U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt tossed out the convictions of five former NOPD officers in the Danziger Bridge shooting case, in part because of the online commenting of Sal Perricone and Jan Mann, once high-ranking members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

So that's now Heebe, Nagin, and the Danzinger cops who have picked up the Perricone Get Out Of Jail Card so far. But if this is gonna be somebody's fault, it's ultimately got to be Jim Letten's.

Sympathy for the hobbits

Listen to me, hobbits.

I'm thinking about beginning all of my correspondence with that opening from now on. Yesterday I said that the Letten-O'Keefe video "does not disappoint." I might have understated my feelings a bit.

It is every bit the big-pompous-asshole-screams-bizarre-unconventional-insults-at-annoying-little-twerp bit of comedy gold I had imagined it could be the moment we learned of the encounter.

Since yesterday afternoon, I've watched it at least 50 times.  Every time I laugh loudest at some new aspect.  There's the way Letten holds the phone steady next to his reddened face as he shouts. There's the part where he, literally, throws the book at O'Keefe. There's the line "All of you, you're hobbits. You are less than I can ever tell you. You are scum. Do you understand?" It's the, "Do you understand?" part that gets me.  I think this rhetorical treasure should be recreated on stage for future generations to ponder. Like the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  

So it's a wonderful blessing and we should be thankful for it.  But also pay attention to what it also might tell us about the already infamous sloppiness of Letten's office.

This background adds an interesting dimension to O’Keefe’s claim that Mann, or someone on her team, leaked privileged emails between O’Keefe and his lawyer, in an attempt to drive media coverage against him. In the second video, O’Keefe says that Attorney General Eric Holder pressured Letten’s office to prosecute O’Keefe (presumably for political reasons).

The videos note some of the many interconnections in and outside Letten’s office. For example, Mann and her husband were both top prosecutors, and Sen. Landrieu’s brother Maurice was a prosecutor on staff. The second video quotes from a letter O’Keefe’s attorneys sent to the Department of Justice asking that Mann recuse herself from the case due to “intertwining political issues.” (According to O’Keefe, there was no response to the request.)

The letter failed to mention a relevant fact that I’ve wondered about: Mann grew up with Landrieu. They were classmates at Ursuline Academy (both were class of ‘73 graduates). Further, Mann’s father — Joseph Maselli — a proud Italian-American and fervent foe of ethnic and racial bigotry, proposed building the Piazza d’Italia to Mayor Moon Landrieu. (The plaza is now undergoing renovations under Moon’s son, Mayor Mitch Landrieu).  Indeed, according to Maselli’s Oct. 23, 2009, obituary in The Times-Picayune, Moon Landrieu was an honorary pallbearer for Maselli. So Mann grew up with Mary Landrieu, and their fathers were friends.

This seems to be the basis of a pretty clear conflict of interest. Letten’s recusal might have given the appearance of fairness, but Mann may have had more of a conflict than her boss! If so, Mann should not have prosecuted the case and should have recused herself along with Letten.

And, of course, there's more there. Go read. 

Just keep checking the comments

Eventually everything will be published there, anyway.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility has declined to make public its investigation into possible misconduct by former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sal Perricone and perhaps other prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office. A lawyer for the office recently wrote to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune to say she was "withholding any responsive information" to a request the newspaper made under the federal Freedom of Information Act for any reports or documents generated as part of the investigation.

All their bats are corked

Moseley does well with this metaphor.

Some fellow pundits claim the scandals involving online comments and possible prosecutorial misconduct only tarnish the terminal months of Jim Letten’s legacy as U.S. Attorney in New Orleans. They’re a stain at the end of his distinguished tenure, according to WWL’s Clancy Dubos. A bad final chapter in an otherwise great book of accomplishments, according to WGSO radio host Kaare Johnson.

It’s as if Letten were at bat in the bottom of the ninth inning, and struck out on a wicked slider thrown by businessman (and former federal target) Fred Heebe. Then he retired. You can’t boo a Hall of Famer for one untimely lapse, can you?

Government and politics is no place for hero worship.  No one rises to these leadership roles through the awesome force of shimmering virtue. Instead, such men and women make their careers through grasping compromise of principle; by going along to get along; by consciously conforming themselves, their opinions, and priorities, to those of the governing class; by whispering together in their dry cellars and such.

High ranking public officials are not "dragonslayers." They are club men.  Their most common distinguishing characteristic is cowardice. This isn't always a bad thing, of course.  Because we are fortunate enough to live under a mildly responsive, somewhat functional, kind of democratic form of government, we can occasionally frighten the cowardly club men into doing the right thing.  But what that requires from us is constant attention, and much screaming and yelling at no small expense to our leisure, our security, and to our pocketbooks.

Even so the failure rate remains high. The club, after all, is the club and its members enjoy many privileges most of us do not. In any case, there is no time in this to stop and pretend any of our presumed leaders, even when occasionally made to behave, is our friend.  It would be helpful, then, if the gatekeepers of our journalism would refrain from doing so too. But maybe that's too much to ask since so many of them clearly want to be in the club themselves.

Department of names that are probably made up

I notice these often enough that I've decided to start collecting them.  Every now and then a news story pops up where a principal's name seems suspiciously Dickensian.  A few examples:

Bobby Jindal's current Commissioner of Administration is a man called Paul Rainwater.  During the years following the Katrina flood, Rainwater worked for the Louisiana Recovery Authority in hazard mitigation.  So stories about homeowners dealing with flood issues frequently included a quote or two from Rainwater.

For many years the Louisiana State Police designated spokesperson in matters of alcohol and highway safety was Jim Champagne.

I recently discovered that LSU Ag Center employs an environmental scientist named Chris Green. 

And then there are the names that just sound made up such as former Assistant US Attorney Jan Mann or, names that actually probably are made up such as local artist Katrina Brees.

I'm sure I've got more of these.  Once you start to notice a couple, it's surprising how frequently they occur.  For example this week's Gambit cover story about the city's overblown preparations for the Superbowl includes comments from the NFL's point man for coordinating this event with the city.

When New Orleans hosted the big game in 2002, the city and NFL scrambled to come up with a plan following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, which postponed the event and pushed the game into the Carnival calendar. "This time we've had a few more years to perfect the plan, not just a few months. Super Bowl XVII is a lot bigger," says Frank Supovitz, NFL vice president of special events.