Since the mid-1960’s, I have interacted with six Louisiana Governors—John McKeithen, Edwin Edwards, David Treen, Buddy Roemer, Mike Foster and Kathleen Blanco. My relationships ranged from casual to friendly to downright hostile. Edwin Edwards falls into the hostile category. After a couple of exposés that failed to meet his approval, he anointed me with the label, “derelict gunslinger.” The title refers to my checkered past and occupation as a muckraker.

I’ve never met Governor Smarty Pants, aka Bobby Jindal. Not there haven’t been opportunities. When he isn’t travelling across the country to raise campaign funds, promote himself as a potential national GOP candidate for something (preferably the Presidency and/or Vice Presidency), he is either searching for television cameras, giving his Jesus testimony in churches or passing out medals to military veterans, which is the Governor’s latest publicity ploy. He needs to adopt a campaign slogan of “Anywhere but Baton Rouge.”

I’m a four-year military veteran—a partially disabled veteran, in fact, as a result of being to close to jet aircraft and loud explosions. But despite tales I told barroom buddies in my drinking days long ago, the hearing loss I suffered did not involve great heroics. I deserved no extra medals then. Or now. Nonetheless, thanks for the offer, Governor. But I pass. The money can be better utilized keeping you in the Capitol figuring out ways to stop Louisiana’s descent to the status of a third world country.

The “third world”  analogy is not original. It was recently used by my former television colleague Barry Erwin, now head of the Council for a Better Louisiana. His remarks related to the Governor’s unending demands for slashing education budgets. From pre-school to college and beyond, the future is bleak. The only ray of sunshine is the LSU Tigers, which for many people is more important anyway. But that could change after football season opens this coming Saturday, meaning that the burden is on Coach Les Miles to give Louisianans something to brag about.

To quote our President, “Let me be perfectly clear.” I have not a clue of how  to deal with Louisiana’s financial dilemma. But it seems that Governor Smarty Pants could offer a plan better than cut, slash and eliminate. After all, the guy is an Ivy League educated Rhodes Scholar. And that may be the problem. More than any Louisiana Governor I’ve known, there seems to be a disconnect between Jindal, the legislature and the people who elected him.

Instead of focusing on the state’s financial problems during the most recent legislative session, the Governor stalked television cameras on the gulf coast. Throughout the efforts to deal with the BP oil spill catastrophe, he stepped before cameras on a daily basis to show-off his speed-talking skills. Some of his updates were barely comprehensible, but 24-hour cable news networks gave him the face time on national TV that he coveted.

Perhaps Governor Smarty Pant’s constant presence at the scene was helpful, but I haven’t figured out in what way. Certainly, his absence from Baton Rouge deprived the legislature of any kind of leadership. The only measure that seemed to remotely interest the administration was maintaining as much secrecy as possible with respect to Governor’s office. Come to think of it, Jindal might be positioning himself for a CIA appointment.

Whether Kathleen Blanco could have done a better job in handling the state’s financial crisis is an unknown. Given her background as a teacher and her interest in the state’s education system, I’m guessing she would have been far more aggressive in protecting Louisiana’s academic programs. Unfortunately, though, Hurricane Katrina did her in—unfairly maybe.

Katrina’s impact on Blanco falls under my heading of reporting that I never completed. In 2006, I did preliminary research for a Dallas, Texas production company that was in the early stages of a proposed movie length Katrina documentary. As it turned out, the project was too little, too late. Spike Lee’s HBO documentary was already in production.

Before the the Dallas group abandoned its project, I reviewed a lot of material, and spent time with Governor Blanco and several Administration officials. I came away under the  impression that she was the victim of circumstances such as the storm altering its course overnight after many residents refused to evacuate, levees giving way, news reporters playing “gotcha” and politicians trying to divert blame for their dereliction of duties on others.

At my first meeting with Governor Blanco, she made the point that if the levees protecting New Orleans had held, the major story of 2005 would have been Rita—the devastating hurricane that struck southwestern Louisiana a few weeks after Katrina. Although the force of Katrina inflicted heavy damage on the area, it was the flood that caused most of the devastation.

Regardless, Blanco was blamed for Corps of Engineers miscalculations, FEMA’s failures, and the tepid response to the tragedy by the Bush Administration. Because of the public’s perception of her “weakness” in responding to the storm, Blanco’s re-election chances diminished. Her departure from politics made it easy sailing for Bobby Jindal.

So far, Governor Smarty Pants has done a fine job getting on TV, visiting churches and presenting medals to old soldiers. One day, maybe he will get around to leading the state out of its crisis. 

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

There’s many people in the world just like our Henny-Penny,

They panic when they listen to the news,

They think the sky is falling and we’re all about to die,

I’d say they have the Henny-Penny-Blues.

The Lightnin’ Hopkins song should be adopted as the anthem of the Tea Party. “The sky is falling” iseems to be the mantra of the loudest folks at tea party demonstrations and other events. It is no wonder. Doomsday prophecies dominate the nation’s airwaves and cable news channels. And although the heaviest dose of negativism and uncivility penetrates the right ear, the left ear drum also takes a beating. Whine, bitch, complain. There seems to be no escape.

This certainly is not the best of times. Nor is it the worst of times. My IRA is proof. Unfortunately, though, our society lives on instant gratification. Patience? What the hell is that? President Obama promises a slow recovery of the economy. But he should have dealt with that problem yesterday. Worse, the President delivered on his campaign promises. Health care legislation and finance reform were passed by a Democrats in Congress, despite opposition from a party that votes no on bathroom breaks.

I recognize the contradiction in my vent. Whine, bitch, complain. But I duck when passing mirrors to avoid seeing myself as others might see me. Besides, I’m a journalist. That gives me a free pass to point fingers at other people, create conflict and act like I have good sense. These are God given journalistic privileges. If you don’t believe me, just watch television. Listen to the radio. Or—I know this is radical in the Internet age—read newspapers.

So where am I going with this rant? I’m not exactly sure where my fingers will take me. More than likely, it’s in the direction of politics, pollsters and journalists. One of the qualities I admire in Obama is his apparent tendency to ignore polls. At least, in the short-term. His knee seems to remain relatively still in the face of opposition to issues such as health reform, immigration, drilling moratoriums, etc. Unlike his predecessor who put on a flight suit to declare our victory in Iraq (some victory) Obama didn’t don a scuba outfit and dive into the Gulf of Mexico to plug the BP oil leak. Maybe he expected Louisiana Governor Smarty Pants to put his finger in the well head.  

I have no doubt that Obama reads the polls. Actually, he doesn’t need to. News reporters and pundits read them obsessively and pass along the results when questioning the President. Even if he doesn’t care that people believe he is the worst President since the one yesterday. Or the one tomorrow. Even though journalists comprising the Washington elite don’t cover a hurricanes, they still bend with the breeze—most of which is generated polls.

In a weird sort of way, Fox “News” is refreshing. Bet the readers of the blog never believed I would make such a statement. But like patients in mental asylums, Fox folks see the world differently than the norm. In my book, that is okay. It just gives me additional things to bitch about in the blog. Thirty seconds watching Glenn Beck provides enough material to last for days.

I relate to oddballs because my investigative reporting career was built on contrarianism. At times when all my colleagues were jumping on the bandwagon of conventional wisdom, I hung around to ask one more question about an issue and/or individual. One more question led to two, then three and so on. The results were often surprising. As evidence, check the journalism awards on the walls of my home office. But be sure to knock. Sometimes my hair is mussed.

In some respects, the only difference between the Fox folks and me is that I based my exposés on facts rather than politics. Sadly, facts are not much in vogue today. Especially on cable news networks. All three—I’m being generous in calling MSNBC a news network—are filled programming with talking heads. Fox provides forum for every known Republican politician. MSNBC’s format of all opinion, all the time caters to Democrats. CNN tries to play the middle ground by encouraging guests from the left and right to engae in fistfights. Instead, the conflicts are pissing matches. I fully expect CNN to raise the stakes by recruiting Jerry Springer. He could take the place of John King. 

By the way (notice that I didn’t use the shortcut btw to make me seem like I was a mod kind of guy), what’s with John King—no relation to the network’s mummy in residence, Larry King. John is CNN’s replacement for nutty Lou Dobbs. Although King the younger claims Massachussets as his birthplace, my suspicion is he was born in a taxicab on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House while his mother played video games. He is consumed with Presidential politics and digital devices that are designed to totally confuse viewers. I Tivo the show and use it as a cure for insomnia.

But enough of this rambling discourse. I warned you that I didn’t know where my fingers were going to take me. My dilemma now is coming up with a clever close to the post, something that relates to the title. I never attended journalsim school but I think there is supposed to be a bit of relevance between the opening and the finale.

How about this? I’ve rattled on today without any forethought given to what the hell I was going to say.

BTW (they years just peeled away), tomorrow is re-run day as I try to escape the dog days of summer by heading out of town.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

The dumbing down of America continues. In 2008, I expected former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to go away and devote her time to shooting wolves from helicopters. But like a persistent virus, her simple-minded populist solutions to complex problems spreads among a discontented segment of society, as well as opportunistic politicians and wild-eyed pundits on radio and television.

The latest victim of populism fever is Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal. For nearly three months, Governor “Smarty-Pants” has spent nearly every waking hour in close range of television cameras that are covering the unfolding oil spill tragedy on the Gulf Coast. No doubt, he should be a leader in the battle to save the environmental and economic future of south Louisiana. But somewhere along the way, he seems to have been infected with Sarah Palin disease. Jindal has taken the attitude that he doesn’t need the advice of no stinking scientists, environmentalists and biologists.

For an Ivy League educated Rhodes Scholar, Governor Smarty Pants insistence that he knows more than all the experts seems curious. A mark of intelligence is a willingness to listen. But apparently, the only thing Jindal hears is his soaring fabvorability polls—most recently at 74 percent.

The man who would like to be President could probably add a few more points to his popularity rating by shooting BP executives from helicopters. Come to think about it, though, Palin has already cornered the market on shooting unarmed creatures from above. Maybe Jindal can lure BP officials into the churches where he trolls for votes when not jumping in front of TV cameras. His prey would then have a fighting chance since the Governor’s signature is now on a bill allowing concealed weapons in church sanctuaries. I know there are certain restrictions, but who reads the small print.

Anyway, I’m digressing into silliness. Back to the more serious business of political exploitation of the oil spill disaster. Baton Rouge’s Sunday Advocate has a front page story that does not speak well of LSU scientists, nor the Jindal Administration. An LSU professor and advisor to the state Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration told the newspaper that he and panel members had the same concerns as the federal government about the Governor’s insistence of constructing sand berms and rock jetties to block the flow of oil into marsh lands.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/98183534.html

In effect, Louisiana’s coastal “protection” panel of experts remained publicly silent because of the political ramifications. In other words, don’t rock the populist boat of Governor Smarty Pants, even though they believed his plan would have hurt more than help protect the fragile marsh land.

Unrelated to the Gulf oil spill was another weekend news article offering insight about the Sarah Palin syndrome. A study by a bunch of academic pointy-heads concluded that when people accept misinformation as reality, actual facts will not change minds under most circumstances.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=full

I know the study was probably conducted by liberal elitists. Even so, how about the birthers? Nothing changes their minds. I wish they were an extreme example. Sadly, the viral e-mail that often arrives suggests otherwise. And as a matter of personal corroboration, I have right-wing friends and family members who spit in the face of facts that dispute beliefs and/or opinions that are patently ridiculous. To be fair, the hardcore left is just as hard-headed. Worse, though, are journalists who never allow facts to get in the way of a good story.

As far as I know, the only antidote to protect against the Sarah Palin virus is reading. But too many people gave up that habit long ago in favor of simply listening. And what they listen to is a carrier of the disease of ignorance.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

The distance on a baseball diamond between the pitcher’s mound and homeplate is 60 feet, six inches. From that vantage point, the pitcher can determine the number of fingers displayed by the catcher for a fastball, curve ball, slider, etc. Ideally, the pitcher will then throw the ball within centimeters of his target. It is no big deal. Unless, of course, the pitcher misses the target and a batter sends the ball sailing over the fence.

Having cited this example of distance, I find it incredible that news reporters are whining about the U.S. Coast Guard and BP establishing restrictions that bar them from approaching within 60 feet of active cleanup operations and other activities related to the Gulf Coast oil spill.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/bp-media-clampdown-journa_n_636317.html

Maybe news organizations have assigned near-sighted news people to cover the catastrophe. Or legally blind reporters, who hope the damage can be traced in Braille. Or just maybe the people covering the oil spill need something to bitch about besides the unfolding disaster. Whining is, after all a characteristic of folks in the news business. Certainly, I did enough in 30 years as a reporter/muckraker.

In the past, much of my media bashing has focused on the timidity of the news media. I expressed dismay after learning that reporters obeyed unofficial orders issued by self-important underlings not to approach certain public areas. In my lifetime as journalist, I used an obscene two word phrase when jerks tried to block my access to areas that were clearly public. Not once was I arrested, although I would have welcomed the opportunity to be dragged away in handcuffs. Deep down, I had a yearning to be a journalism martyr. Indeed, in those rare instances when my name appeared in newspapers for taking up some cause, I played the duplicious role of outraged newsman while secretly smiling to myself as I clipped the articles from the papers to show colleagues. It made me feel important. 

Anyway, a restricted 60 foot perimeter seems reasonable, That is presuming that the rule is flexible. In our journalistic arrogance, those of us in the media have always believed that we are above rules and regulations established for lesser beings. As a result, unreasonable expectations on the part of journalists have often brought about tighter restrictions in covering news events.

My career overlapped court decisions that tightened laws dealing with trespassing. Admittedly, I was sometimes a violator of the privacy of people. Many of my early exposés involved gathering undercover video in restaurants, businesses and oher places.  Much of the invasive filming was in Miami where I was staked out in a snoop van painted the same colors as a Southern Bell telephone truck. But teh van camera only reached as far as the doorways of locations. As I write in Odyssey of a Dereilict Gunslinger (I have to plug the book), I bragged in a long ago TV Guide article about orchestrating an undercover filming expedition inside a Miami Beach restaurant to capture pictures of mobster Meyer Lansky meeting with associates.

Getting pictures inside was a problem since my face regularly appeared on Channel Seven. Worse, Lansky and I had several previous encounters. So we recruited a new member to the spy team. Mercifully, the young producer will remain nameless. No need to embarrass him at this late date. But he was terrified of being caught, tortured and killed.

After assuaging his fears, we convinced the producer to dress as a telephone repairman and undertake a mission to get snapshots with a miniature camera concealed in a cigarette pack. Technology had not yet developed tiny video cameras that can be hidden in lapels.

On the appointed day, our nervous spy got out of the van without being pushed. Although a non-smoker, he paused to light up outside the restaurant. In a greatly exaggerated motion, he inhaled deeply and began coughing to near collapse. My photographer and I laughed so hard in the spy van that I feared the movement of the vehicle would attract the attention of passers-by.

Catching his breath, our undercover snooper staggered inside and found a table as far away from other diners as possible. Naturally, Lansky and friends also wanted to sit far away from the crowd. As luck would have it, they chose a table adjacent to the producer. It’s a wonder he didn’t keel over with a coronary. But he sucked it up and snapped off a roll of black and white film. The photographs were important in establishing links between Lansky, a group of bookies and Miami public officials.

Although the pictures were a significant part of my story, video we shot outside the restuarant from our van was equally, if not more important. Prior to going inside, Lansky encountered and embraced a racetrack owner, who had publicly denied on many occasions knowing the so-called “wizard of organized crime.” In fact, he had provided the state racing commission with an affidavit denying he knew the mobster. Our video caught the two men engrossed in a long, animated conversation. It resulted in the racetrack owner having to relinquish his pari-mutuel wagering license.

The restaurant adventure—part of a Peabody-award winning series—was one of my last inside filming efforts. Not long afterwards, the courts made trespassing on private property scarier than defamation and libel lawsuits. So my unsolicited advice to reporters is to know what is public and what is private while covering the oil spill. And if somebody makes an unreasonable effort to block access to public areas, don’t whine about it. Use my two-word response.

We need a few journalism martyrs on the Gulf Coast.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is taking full advantage of the tragedy devastating the Gulf coast to revive his national political aspirations. But he may be over-playing the opportunity. Several Louisiana lawmakers are criticizing him for ignoring his Baton Rouge responsibilities while the recently adjourned legislature was in session. And the national media is questioning Jindal’s duplicity in lambasting the federal government out of one side of his mouth and begging for money out of the other side.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/politics/26jindal.html?th&emc=th

In some respects, Governor Jindal reminds me of smarty-pants kids, who always seemed to occupy the front row of my elementary school classrooms. While I looked dumbfounded when called on to answer questions that interrupted my daydreams of heroics on athletic fields, there were always teacher’s pets waving their hands saying, “I know, I know.”

Rhodes scholar and Ivy League graduate Bobby Jindal is so smart that I believe he outsmarts himself. The Governor’s presence on Louisiana’s Gulf coast is admirable and reassuring to residents. But he acts as if he alone has solutions to the catastrophe. Granted, BP’s public relations policies have been a corporate disaster. However, Jindal’s suggestion of foot-dragging by BP and/or the federal government is patently ridiculous. The company’s stock has plunged in value and President Obama is taking a beating in the polls because of his inability to dive into the Gulf and personally plug the leak. Remarkably, the President was criticized by many Republicans for strong-arming BP to put $20-billion into an escrow fund to compensate Gulf coast residents and businesses for their losses.

In recent days, much of the criticism of BP has focused on the bureaucratic snafus that have slowed the compensation process. One thing is for sure. When it comes to bureaucracy, Louisiana has very few, if any, short-term answers. A historical overload of too many layers of government has been the main contributor to the state’s current economic woes. Unfortunately, Jindal was absent from Baton Rouge while lawmakers wrestled with the problem during the recently concluded legislative session.

As Governor, his responsibilities “included” a frequent and visible presence at the site of the tragedy. But the job of Louisiana’s chief executive also requires his presence in the Capitol. The television cameras, however, were focused on the coastline. He could not resist a chance to redeem his image, which was badly damaged by a cartoonish speech delivered in response to President Obama’s 2009 State of the Union address. 

How much time Jindal has spent in Baton Rouge during the oil spill is a state secret. More than most past Louisiana Governors, he maintains a veil of secrecy around his official activities and travels. But for the time being at least, voters are getting to see his face on TV every night.

If all the national television exposure fails to revive Jindal’s national ambitions, his propensity for secrecy will make him a perfect candidate to head the CIA when the Republicans next take control of the White House.  

While on the subject of Gulf coast television face time, how about CNN’s Anderson Cooper? He has camped out at the scene of the disaster since it began. Not surprising. The same was true when he reported from Haiti following the devastating earthquake, and in New Orleans after Katrina.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/18cooper.html?th&emc=th

Among anchors, Cooper stands alone in his hands-on reporting from where news is breaking. The opportunity to be where the action is may be the reason that CNN is able to keep him on the payroll. He has received lucrative job offers from other networks. I doubt that money is an influencing factor. As the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, Cooper grew up with wealth.

In coming months, he may get a boost in ratings that are below what he deserves. Larry King announced yesterday that he will leave his nightly program in the fall. The ratings-poor King show is the lead-in to Anderson’s Cooper’s prime-time newscast.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/29/AR2010062904751.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Larry King’s departure turns another page in CNN’s history. He probably should have followed me out the door ten years ago. Times were changing. Younger faces were appearing and the taste for fawning over celebrities was diminishing. Anyway, I hope the 76 year old veteran talk show host enjoys his sunset years. If his present wife fails her audition, Larry still has time to add a few more spouses to his alimony payroll.

In case anyone misses these missives for a few days, my blog posts will be absent until next Tuesday. I’m departing today for San Antonio to join thousands of anonymous folks in celebrating the 75th anniversary of an anonymous 12-step fellowship that save my life and salvaged the lives of millions of other people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/opinion/29brooks.html?ref=opinion

Have a great holiday weekend!

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

For eight years, pundits made exaggerated complaints that George W. Bush was too dumb to be President. Remember Ronald  Reagan? And for two years, the same pundits complain that President Obama is too smart. Remember Bill Clinton? I ain’t got no fine college education, but I’m smart enough to recognize stupidity when it comes from the mouths of no-it-all political commentators, reporters and talk show hosts. 

In the latest stupid episode of the dumbing-down of America, an alleged “expert” on speech patterns characterized the President’s recent Oval Office speech about the Gulf oil spill as too complicated for the average television viewer to comprehend.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/17/obama-oil-spill-speech-cr_n_615796.html

I watched the President’s speech and understood every word he said. Didn’t go to the dictionary even once. Granted, I went a little bit beyond the 9.9 grade level that the “expert” claimed was required to understand the address. In fact, I’m the proud owner of a diploma from Tuscaloosa, Alabama Senior High School. Graduated in the top 80% of my class. Sadly, I couldn’t maintain the momentum during one semester at the University of Alabama, where I failed every course except ROTC. The school has a dumb rule requiring students to attend classes. A few years later, I attended disc jockey school for four semesters. However, spinning records only makes people dumber. Have you heard of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other ex-disc jockeys now make a living by drooling on microphones? 

Anyway, I rated Obama’s speech as okay—though unnecessary. I rate it much higher than saying, “Let’s bomb the hell out of Baghdad and give CNN some visual news to report.” The President did what President’s are supposed to do. He re-enforced his Administration’s commitment to assist people and businesses effected by the spill. Proof came the following day when he shook-down BP for $20-billion—”shake-down” being the decription given the escrow fund by a stupid GOP Congressman (told you I recognized stupid when I heard it). 

The fund will go a long way in diminishing some of the fears of Gulf coast folks whose lives have been put on hold.  It will also help keep the courts unclogged by thousands of lawsuits. Though painful to plaintiff lawyers deprived of their 40% contingency fees, providing an alternative to litigation will expedite the payment of claims.

Obama’s speech notwithstanding, he can say nothing, nor can he do anything at this point to satisfy his critics and/or the people suffering from the tragedy. I hope he regularly recites the Serenity Prayer. If you don’t know words, it’s time to move out of your cave.

Unfortunately, a sizeable segment of society avoids making independent judgments about solutions to ongoing catrastophes, controversial issues and political dilemmas. Too often they are willing to accept the judgments of idiots. I ask again, have you heard of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al?

For most of my career in broadcasting, I worked with people better educated than me. As Senior Investigative Correspendent in CNN’s Special Assignment investigative unit, I was surrounded by reporters and producers with Ivy League diplomas and degrees from several prestigious universities. Earlier in my career, I spent five years an under-educated, redneck ex-drunk in charge of an investigative unit at a highly acclaimed local station in “Blue Blood” Boston. In these and other environments throughout my career, academic shortcomings caused me hang-ups. I compensated for the insecurities by reading everything I could get my hands on, developing a polysyballic vocabulary and a smart-ass attitude.  

My wife, who has two advanced degrees, has jokingly threatened to slap me (I think its a joke) if I repeat one more time, “I ain’t got no fine college education like you,” a phrase I frequently use when pontificating on some obscure topic I read about in books and magazines that are published for readers above the 9.9 grade level. I’ve subscribed to New Yorker for years. I read most articles and even profess to understand many of its cartoons. I hope that makes me seem sophisticated?  

I realize there are other smart-asses, who say I never needed to go beyond the 9.9 grade level. After all, I was a television reporter. Indeed, TV news is responsible for dumbing down America. Investigative reporting has all but disappeared from television. Too complicated. Therefore, most muckraking that is left falls into the category of superficial. In the latter days of my career, reporters were advised by so-called “news doctors” to make stories “viewer friendly.” 

Maybe the President should hire a “news doctor” so he can begin his speeches by saying, “Oil rig went boom, boom.”

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

In an era of 24-hour cable news, disasters breed instant celebrities. In the two months since BP’s oil rig explosion, Plaquemines Parish Police Jury President Billy Nungessor has gotten more face time on CNN than most correspondents get in a career. For awhile, it seemed that every time I glanced at the screen, he was being interviewed by Anderson Cooper or some other reporter. Nungessor, a successful businessman before being elected as the Parish’s top official, has been around politics most of his life. His father, Billy Sr., was former Chairman of the state Republican party and a top aide to the late Governor, David Treen.

But in terms of political power, the Nungessors and every other Plaquemines Parish official in the last 75 years are overshadowed by the infamous Judge Leander Perez, a corrupt segregationist whose disgraceful bigotry became such a national symbol of racial hatred that he was ex-communicated from the Catholic Church.

For forty years, Perez ruled his small domain like a monarch. Although he only served a short time on the bench prior to becoming District Attorney, he maintained the title of “judge” thoughout his life. Perez’s claim to infamy was racism and the shake down oil and mineral companies for millions of dollars—sometimes for the good of the community, but mostly for himself. 

The judge’s raw power was initially exhibited during the 1930’s when the Plaquemines parish town of Port Sulphur was established by Freeport Sulphur Company, now called Freeport McMoran. Three decades later, a company official told me a story about the Perez’s unbridled influence while I was visiting a Freeport drilling rig for a radio news story. When company operations were first proposed in the Gulf, the executive said Perez demanded that Freeport build a hospital and construct a new drainage system in the parish. When officials refused, the judge warned that not a shovel of dirt would be turned for a processing plant, nor an ounce of sulphur extracted from the Gulf until the demands were met. The stand-off lasted only a few weeks. The company was forced to relent because it was unable to recruit a single worker from the community, or even import outsiders for the project. Prospective employees were stopped by sheriff’s deputies on the only road providing access to the coastal parish.

On orders from Judge Perez, the same kind of blockade would be used years later to block civil rights organizers from entering the tight knit community. An outspoken bigot, his racial slurs were loud and public. He raged against blacks in small gatherings, before microphones in the Louisiana legislature and interviews with reporters. 

At a volatile time in the desegregation of Louisiana schools, Perez launched attacks on the Catholic Church in the wake of a call for calm by the Archbishop of New Orleans. Criticism of the church, personal attacks on the cleric and his rhetoric inciting white citizens to resist racial mixing led to his ex-communication.

I only met the judge once. He was a guest on my radio talk show in 1968. By then, age had toned him down slightly. Still, he displayed pride in his notoriety by wearing a badge that stated “Here come da Judge,” a phrase made popular by the Rowan and Martin television show, Laugh In.

Judge Perez died in March, 1969 at the age 78. However, his legacy of politics was passed to his sons. Leander Jr. was elected District Attorney and his brother, Chalin, became parish President. And five months after Perez’s death, I witnessed first hand the perception of power that had been passed on to his sons.

In August, 1969, Hurricane Camile devastated Plaquemines parish. A few days afterwards, I traveled to the parish with then Louisiana Superintendent of Eduction, Bill Dodd. He made the trip to assess the damage to schools and come up with a plan to begin repairs. Bill was a veteran politican—a Governor wannabe and one time candidate. Over the years, he held five statewide offices at one time or the other, including a short stint as Lieutenant Governor. He was not a political lightweight. Except in the presence of members of the Perez family as I found out.

We had driven a circuitous route around damage and debris that blocked the highway into the parish prior to finally arriving at a gymnasium where Chalin Perez had set up his office. A table and chairs were located at the far end from the entrance to the gym. Chalin sat at in the middlewith a couple of flunkies on either side. Surprisingly, Bill approach with the same deference one would expect in the presence of royalty. And Perez treated him in that manner. After promises were made to assist the parish in rebuilding, Bill was dismissed and in a matter of minutes with a wave of Chalin’s hand. It seemed like a scene from an old western movie in which the town boss issues orders.

Whatever power Chalin Perez then possessed, it began to disintergrate when he and Leander Jr. became embroiled in a family feud. Over money, of course. The judge had left behind a multi-million dollar fortune that was accumulated from his corrupt deals with companies wanting to do business in the parish. Following his death, lawsuits were filed to recover the ill-gotten gains. The litigation was eventually settled for $12-million. Though neither of the brothers were left impoverished, daddy’s legacy of power was soon lost.

In watching the ever-present parish official Billy Nungessor on television in recent days, I wonder how the Judge would have handled a tragedy of the magnitude of the oil spill—especially in having to deal face-to-face with an African American President.

On second thought, I don’t want to even speculate.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

I’ll get to Rick Sanchez later in this post. But first, a few words about the testimony of BP President Tony Hayward this morning before the the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. As this is written more than one hour into the Congressional hearing, Hayward has yet to utter a word about his company’s massive blunders. Instead, committee members are giving their usual speeches—posturing and politicizing.

Chairman Bart Stupak began the hearing by droning on about its purpose. We know the purpose, for God’s sake. As the Democrat’s Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, he going to need a speech therapist before heading out on the campaign trail. But Stupak is downright dynamic compared to California Democrat Henry Waxman, who continues his campaign to become the most boring person ever elected to Congress. Today, he gave an endless recitation of every news story and revelation since the spill occured 50-plus days ago.

So far, however, the leading contestant in the sweepstakes for the most stupid comments is GOP Representative Joe Barton of Texas—a state that is not far behind South Carolina, Illinois and Louisiana in electing politicians, who require zippers on their mouths. Barton today accused President Obama of shaking down BP by pressuring the mega-corporation to commit a minimum of $20-billion dollars into an escrow fund to compensate the “small people” for the loss of their livlihoods and to pay for the damage inflicted on Gulf Coast seafood industry, marshes, beaches and wildlife. The use of the term, “small people,” was a gaffe by the Swedish speaking Chairman of BP’s board. He has since apologized and promised to also compensate medium and large people.

Anyway, Congressman Barton’s remarks were so dumb he broke my stupidity measuring scale. In addition to describing  the escrow fund as a “shakedown,” he actually apologized to BP for President Obama’s insistence that a fund be established to insure that Gulf Coast residents get paid for their losses. 

The loss of my stupidity measuring device is a setback because the Louisiana legislature launched a comeback yesterday to regain its title as the nation’s stupid politics champion. Lawmakers revived a bill that will allow concealed weapons in church. WWJP. What would Jesus pack.

That brings me to Rich Sanchez time. My Sanchez obsession is not personal. He’s probably a nice guy. Then the cameras light up and he represents everything that is wrong with television news. Sanchez is not a journalist. He is a performer playing the role of a journalist. It goes back to his days in Miami at the same local station where my career as a television investigative reporter began, which was a few years before Rick’s arrival on the scene. I learned of Rick’s style in one of those “You are not going to believe this guy” phone calls from a former colleague. I didn’t believe, but now do after watching his role playing CNN antics.

Remarkably, though, Sanchez got out-done this week by a substitute anchor on his afternoon program, Rick’s List. Sitting in for the vacationing Sanchez was Drew Griffin, CNN’s Senior “Investigative” Correspondent—a position I held for ten years, ten years ago (I know I could have said a “decade ago” to avoid repetition, but I like it the way I wrote it).

It’s probably impolite to criticize my successor. So what? I will do it anyway, motivated by ”investigative” reporter Griffin’s effort yesterday to go for the President’s jugular by repeating  a story that has been around for several weeks—namely that the White House tried to discourage two candidates from opposing Obama-favored hopefuls in Democratic primary elections in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Discussions about possible Administration jobs if the guys dropped out of the races wre described by Griffin as “Chicago-style  politics.” To re-enforce the characterization, he did a live interview with the Executive Director of Chicago’s Better Government Association, a watchdog group with an impeccable reputation for holding public officials accountable. Unfortunately for Griffin, the BGA representative refused to take the bait. Like every other non-partisan commentators, he described the contacts as a routine effort to maintain the Democratic majority in the Senate. Obama is, after all, the titular head of the party. Griffin’s frustration was visible as he rephrased his questions to elicit the anwer he wanted. Bad reporting, I thought. 

My criticism of Griffin is more an indictment of CNN for the network’s failure to hold him to a higher standard of journalism. My successor has blown other stories. Drew drew (man, I’m on a roll) wrong conclusions when he joined forces with former Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti, who tried to win votes by politicizing Hurricane Katrina tragedies. Foti first accused  Dr. Anna Pou of killing elderly patients at Saint Rita’s hospital in New Orleans. While waiting or evacuation, she prescribed pain medicine to ease the suffering of terminally ill patients. A grand jury refused to indict her.

Griffin also jumped on Foti’s bandwagon in his investigative reports of the owners of a nursing home in which 35 residents died before rescuers got to them. The operators of the facility were eventually tried and exonnerated. And finally, Griffin was responsible for erroneous reports about voter registration fraud by ACORN, the African American political activist group that went into bankruptcy defending itself on a variety of allegations.

So the old codger strikes again. I know I sound like a world class whiner in criticizing CNN and its reporters. But the network has retreated to irrelevance. And that is unfortunate in an era when responsible television reporting is so badly needed. I guess I’m living in the past.  

Back to the congressional hearings. I need a good afternoon nap.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.