Back in 2006, some folks in our fair city voted to re-elect William Jefferson ^[1] even though they didn’t like him. Even though he was (and is) self-absorbed and ineffective. Even though his habit of keeping $90k stashed in frozen Tupperware seemed (and seems) a tad suspicious.

Why would sane, sensible voters do such a thing? Because they assumed that the pending federal investigation of Jefferson would lead to an indictment, which would lead to his resignation, which would lead to another election in which they could elect someone, like, really good.

Those voters, btw, are now officially idiots:

The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that the F.B.I. went too far in searching the office of Representative William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat accused of using his position to promote business deals in Africa.

Without comment, the justices declined to review a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which concluded last August that agents had violated the Constitution by the methods it used in the May 2006 search.

The appeals court did not find that the raid itself was unconstitutional; rather, it found that the F.B.I. violated constitutional separation of powers by allowing agents to look freely through Congressional files for incriminating evidence….

New York Times ^[2]

So basically, instead of voting for a nice, normal candidate the first time around, a bunch of smartasses who simply didn’t care for Karen Carter have allowed Louisiana’s reputation to languish (note: understatement is the new black). That’s pretty unfortunate, because, you know, given all the senatorial whoremongering and the gubernatorial buck-passing and the mayoral spouting-off, we could’ve used an “in” with somebody in DC.

P.S. Coincidentally, Jefferson illustrates my favorite Obscure Word of the Week: throttlebottom ^[3]. It works on so many levels.