Sure it’s cold, but that’s all the more reason to load a stringer with these tasty, hard-fighting fish.
True character is revealed when the fire is turned up.That’s never been more evident than in Louisiana in the weeks, and now months, since Katrina and Rita hit and changed our state forever.
Consider two of Louisiana’s best-known public figures — Tom Benson and Kathleen Blanco.
The man who likes to be called Mr. Benson could have been canonized in the minds of New Orleanians for all eternity had he gotten on local television and said:
“I’m in the winter of my life, and looking back, things have gone well for me. I was a young boy from the 8th Ward with big dreams, and all of those dreams have been realized, some even surpassed. The people of New Orleans have been generous to me when I owned auto dealerships, and more pertinently, through the time that I’ve owned the New Orleans Saints. I’ve made more than enough money to live comfortably the rest of my days, and although I may make a little less money if I keep the Saints in New Orleans, this is precisely the course I will chart. The people who have supported me need a lot of support right now, and I will do all I can to help them. If the NFL doesn’t like it, Paul Tagliabue himself can come down to the Crescent City and try to pry this team from my grasp.”
Imagine how that would have gone over with the fans who have bank-rolled so many of Mr. Benson’s yachts. The city would have changed the name of Poydras Street to Tom Benson Way.
But instead, Mr. Benson has chosen to be greedy and Scrooge-like all the way ’til the bitter end, and he will be villified for as long as there is a New Orleans.
Similarly, our latest governor has emerged from the hurricane mess anything but unscathed. The storms pushed her to the forefront of the national stage, and she developed a case of stage fright that made her into a laughingstock. She’s Louisiana’s answer to Edith Bunker.
Whoever Blanco selected to run her re-election campaign for 2007 is probably looking for a bridge to jump off of, but there actually, in my view, is a way for Blanco to present a strong, decisive front and thus salvage her credibility with voters.
She needs to deliver on a threat she made last year at this time. Blanco rightly expressed that Louisiana endured severe environmental impacts to feed the nation’s oil and gas demands, and that the federal government owed it to Louisiana to restore its ravaged coast. If the feds continued to dilly-dally on the issue, Blanco said she’d have no choice but to refuse to approve any additional drilling permits.
Such an action would cost Louisiana dearly in the form of lost jobs and tax dollars, but it would cost the nation even more profoundly because of the reduction in oil and gas supplies.
But it would certainly get the federal government’s attention, and make the measly $14 billion required to fix our coast seem like a Kmart blue-light special. President Bush announced last month that he had authorized $250 million to be spent on coastal restoration in Louisiana, which is somewhat like feeding a grain of rice to a whale.
If Blanco announced her intention to deny future drilling off the Louisiana coast, it would be the lead story across America, and would thrust her into a staring contest with Bush.
The president would have no choice but to blink, and Blanco would be a hero to Louisianians.
She might even get her own street in New Orleans.
