Rev the choppers: It's time for a coup
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Friday, October 28, 2005
James Gill
This place has been comatose since Katrina, and nobody seems to have any idea how to get out of the mess, so I guess it is for me to come up with a plan. The times call for a man of action.

That is why I am wearing this rather fetching beret and have a bandolier across my chest. I am in urgent need of a helicopter, however. If you happen to own one, and are prepared to do your bit to save Louisiana, give me a call.

Here's what we do. We hover over the yard at the federal prison camp in Oakdale and I slide down a rope. Having watched several Coast Guard rescues in New Orleans on TV after the storm, I think I have the technique down.

Once on the ground I grab Edwin Edwards and we are hoisted up. Away we go, heading straight for Baton Rouge. We mean no harm to Gov. Kathleen Blanco's grandmotherly person, but the putsch is underway.

The storm left Blanco so flummoxed that one press account suggested she appeared "over-medicated" -- presumably on Valium -- when testifying on Capitol Hill. A lot of her constituents around here have the same impression, and "Me-Maw's tranked" is the word on the street.

Perhaps that isn't fair, but Blanco has clearly fallen in the public esteem. They never called Edwards "granddad" when he was governor or suggested he was not in control of his faculties. That's why we have to spring him from Oakdale so that he can take charge and get the recovery moving.

Once we have landed the helicopter on Blanco's lawn, we will rush in and announce that, for the good of the state, she has been removed from office. It might take her a long time to grasp what is going on, but by then we will have her safely ensconced in a secret location, while Edwards gets moving with tasks that proved beyond her, such as negotiating the FEMA bureaucracy.

We will not only have the benefit of Edwards' administrative skills, but put an end to all that speculation in Congress that Louisiana might steal the Katrina relief money. With Edwards in charge, there will be no doubt, and we'll just have to put a graft item in the budget.

It will be a drop in the ocean, for Edwards and his cronies went up the river for relatively modest sums. A few million should keep them satisfied, and be a bargain for us. It would be better than sitting around, waiting for someone to wave a magic wand, which appears to be our current policy. Besides, Edwards is 78 now, and may even prefer honesty over risking his freedom again.

Had Edwards been in charge from the get-go, his old pal ex-U.S. Sen. John Breaux would long ago have forced our splintered congressional delegation to unite in the interests of securing federal reconstruction money. It has taken Blanco this long to figure out that Breaux, the most accomplished political middleman of recent years, needed to be brought abroad.

Meanwhile, we await our first legislative session since the storm. Does anyone imagine Edwards would have been that dilatory?

Mississippi, which we used to mock as slow-witted, has held two sessions already and looks like greased lightning next to us.

Some fussy lawyer is bound to find a constitutional objection to forcibly removing the governor and installing a convicted felon. But now is no time for technicalities. We'll just let citizens flock to the cause and bestrew the streets with flowers as we march along.

I can hear the naysayers already. Jailbreaks are no substitute for elections, they will say, and the only role for which Edwards is suited vis-a-vis the federal government is inmate. We'll never get any more help from Washington if we overturn the elected government.

Such attitudes betray a paucity of imagination. Look at all the oil and gas we control down here. We could simply cut the rest of the country off until we got our moolah.

That would, admittedly, partake of the quality of extortion. Another area in which we could use Edwards' expertise. I hope I have time to grow a beard.

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James Gill is a staff writer. He can be reached at (504) 826-3318 or jgill@timespicayune.com.