Self-proving cliches

The old joke about New Orleans in particular and Louisiana in general (very much like my home County of Kings) is: “We don’t tolerate corruption. We DEMAND it.”
And so it seems, they do, as the Second Congressional District of Louisiana, which includes most of New Orleans, merrily returned scandal-ridden Congressman William Jefferson to office with 57% of the vote in a runoff election. Jefferson, you will recall, was found with over $90,000 in his freezer by the FBI (and two associates have pleaded guilty to bribing him); only legal wrangling about documents arising from an ill-advised raid on his Congressional office are standing between Jefferson and an indictment. Still… to a ninth term we go.
For a Democratic Party who did not win a majority this round because of any favorable perception of it or its policies, but simply because the Republicans had managed to implode on an endless series of disastrous policies (Iraq, deficits, etc.) and disastrous scandals (Foley, DeLay, Foley, Abramoff, Foley, Ney, Foley, Cunningham… did I mention Foley?) all without doing a single decent thing for the American people pretty much ever… for the Democrats to start the session with Mr. Jefferson in their delegation… doesn’t help.
It will just put a little more pressure on the Democrats to pass a popular agenda (minimum wage increase, for one), to hold the President accountable on Iraq, and to otherwise actually stand for something. And pretty quickly, before the ’08 Presidential Derby drowns everything else out. William Jefferson, ladies and gentlemen… he’ll be here all week… or until the grand jury says otherwise…