C. Ray Nagin

Lost in the kerfuffle over Ukraine, the post-Olympics hangover and the narcissism of the Oscars was the news that C. Ray Nagin, the former mayor of New Orleans, was convicted on twenty of twenty-one charges including fraud, bribery, filing false tax returns and other charges.  An appeal will be filed and, based on a technicality, the verdict may be overturned and the case retried.  If the latter occurs, Mr. Nagin would be well-advised to work out a deal for lesser charges and a shorter sentence.  The feds' batting average is pretty high.

What's interesting about this isn't that a city official was found guilty of corruption and sundry other crimes. Look at Chicago, for heaven's sake.  It's a wonder that former Mayor Richard M. Daley wasn't indicted. But political corruption knows not party affiliation -- from Rod Blagojevich to George Ryan to Ray Nagin -- nor color.  That's why corruption convictions usually come in the federal courts, which aren't hidebound to partisan politics.

The interesting thing about Mr. Nagin's conviction, for me at least, is that the whole time he was vilifying George Bush for his handling of the Katrina emergency, Mr. Nagin himself was living fat off the backs of the very people for whom he was allegedly arguing.  He testified in his trial that he took a three hundred percent paycut when he left private business to become mayor, yet while ordinary citizens were homeless because of Katrina, he was dining at the finest restaurants on city credit cards, getting rid of constituents' tax bills in return for perks on private jets and getting investments in family businesses for extensions of mayoral power. The activities for which Mr. Nagin was convicted span his mayoralty, beginning in this private sector career before he became mayor and continuing after he left City Hall.  For Mr. Nagin, the rules just didn't apply.

Admittedly, since I've never been to New Orleans, my pique with this has to do with Mr. Nagin's race-baiting.  He infamously declared that he was going to remake New Orleans as a chocolate city once it recovered from Katrina.  He reviled whites from sections of the city and yet pandered to them to win elections.  He allegedly wanted to help the black community but benefited from it through his corruption instead.  He never ducked an opportunity to take President Bush to task, but in the meantime, he was profiting from his position of power and influence.

That Mr. Nagin's conviction might be overturned on a technicality will provide him the forum for crowing that he is innocent.  The two are not equivalent.  From testimony given at trial, Mr. Nagin was reckless at best, corrupt at worst.  Either way, a conviction in a second trial would appear likely.  Mr. Nagin, however, would be well advised to seek some sort of a deal to spare the feds the trouble and expense of a second trial and get a reduced sentence in the bargain.

One other note regarding this:  Kanye West, the self-proclaimed musical god, infamously declared that George Bush didn't like black people for the way he was mishandling relief efforts for New Orleans.  Putting aside the fact that New Orleans is as much a white city as a black city, what would Mr. West think of Mr. Nagin's corrupt activities at the time his fellow black citizens were starving, homeless and destitute?  Would Mr. West declare that Mr. Nagin didn't like black people, or was Mr. Nagin's corruption directed only at the white portion of the populace?

I'm sure there's sophistry in there to allow for that because, after all, Mr. West is a musical god.  And gods, as we've learned, can do whatever they want.

(c) 2014 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles