Readers who live outside Louisiana can only imagine this scenario: New Orleans’ Congressman, William Jefferson, is under indictment for bribery and racketeering; Louisiana’s Republican Senator, David Vitter, is making headlines across the country for consorting with prostitutes in Washington and here; Mayor Ray Nagin, arguably the least effective chief executive in any city in America, one given to making announcements and speeches but clueless on how to lead a city, is building a war chest in order to run for some political office since he cannot repeat as mayor; and now District Attorney Eddie Jordan is “it.”

Already attacked from every quarter for the DA office’s ineffectiveness at prosecuting major crimes while spending the majority of their time and energy prosecuting minor stuff, this week Jordan announced that charges against 20-year-old Michael Anderson were being dropped because the chief witness had disappeared. Anderson was indicted last year for shooting to death five teenagers on a street corner in Central City. That tragedy made every newspaper and news program in America and considered greatly to the deteriorating reputation of New Orleans in its post-Katrina existence.

Here’s what happened.

On Tuesday of this week, Jordan’s staff announced they were dismissing charges against Anderson. The sole witness could not be found, they said, so they were helpless to proceed with the case.

On Wednesday, NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley held a news conference to announce that his homicide detectives had gone out and found the missing witness within hours. Jordan’s people hastily gave the woman a subpoena to testify before the grand jury next week.

That’s when the hue and cry went up from the community. What kind of mickey-mouse outfit do we have in the district attorney office that a) cannot keep up with a witness and b) does not even check with the police force? Six months ago, Jordan and Chief Riley held a widely publicized meeting with Mayor Nagin in which they subscribed to a ten-point plan of working together to stop the rising tide of crime in this town. Amazingly, the first point on the program was that the DA and the Chief would confer on problematic cases.

Which they did not do.

“Silence is Violence” is a local citizens’ organization that has risen lately to cry out against the violence. It’s leaders have stated publicly that nothing is going to change in this city until DA Jordan is replaced.

The mayor called Attorney General Charles Foti in Baton Rouge–Foti was formerly sheriff of Orleans Parish–and asked him to appoint a committee to investigate how our DA’s office is run. Foti agreed to do so, then Jordan stepped in with his own plan.

First, he will reassign duties in the DA’s office so homicide cases will be handled by the more experienced prosecutors. And secondly, he has requested the National District Attorney’s Association to conduct a review of his office.

Attorney-General Foti quickly announced that this review would be preferable to the one his office was planning to conduct.

In the meantime, four members of the City Council sent a letter to the State Supreme Court asking the justices to look into the DA’s office and consider disciplining Jordan by exercising its power over attorneys.

Looks a lot like Washington, D.C., doesn’t it? Congress investigating the executive branch, the president’s staff claiming executive privilege, both the President and Congress setting new records for lousy approval ratings, some hollering to impeach the president, more and more Republican congressional leaders bailing out of supporting the war in Iraq, and everybody running for the 2008 presidential nomination.

It might be fun to watch if this were not our own country we’re talking about. I feel like we’re all in a 747 airplane at 40,000 feet and the pilots are fighting among themselves, the flight attendants are drunk, and the passengers are combing the plane in search of parachutes.

Meanwhile, the local prostitute who gave the glowing testimonial on what a nice respectable guy Senator David Vitter is this week, received the full treatment herself on the front page of Friday’s Times-Picayune. Her name is variously listed as Wendy Cortez or Wendy Yow or–take your pick–Williams, Shackelford, Ellis, Scavone, and Bruhn. To no one’s surprise, the young lady has an extensive police record, although not for prostitution. Forgery, writing bad checks, parole violation, fraudulent use of credit cards, and plain-out stealing money were her speed.

One has to wonder why a man with everything to lose and nothing to gain except a little momentary satisfaction would risk everything for a dalliance with a prostitute. Locals remember the Jimmy Swaggart episode from nearly 20 years ago, when a man whose face was as recognizable as anyone in the land and whose voice was heard across the nation every day calling for a return to God, did some of the truly dumbest acts on the planet. Why? Because the heart is a rebel, is as good an answer as any other, I suppose.

Is there also a syndrome called the-rules-apply-to-everyone-except-me involved here, too? A person becomes inebriated by his own self-importance, over-imbibing of that toxic liqueur, and scoffs at the idea that he too should obey the same morals and commandments as “the little people.”

On Saturday, the Times-Picayune, trying to out-National-Inquirer the National Inquirer, ran the photos of 15 prominent public figures who were caught and exposed for their involvement in this kind of scandal over the years, and asked readers to match the public comments with the one who said them. The one that stopped me in my tracks was the line attributed to Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

After he was exposed and asked by the Assemblies of God denomination to take a long break from his ministry for counseling, he replied, “If I do not return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go to hell.”

See if you can measure the hubris in that statement.

Perhaps that’s what it’s all about: my strategic self-importance. God cannot do this without me. Therefore, since He needs me so badly, I can get by with what would be impermissible in lesser mortals.

This was not intended to be a dump on Swaggart piece, but I have a vivid recollection of something he said on radio not long before he was exposed and his ministry came close to self-destructing. Speaking of all the worldwide ministries his people were involved in, he said something to the effect that “the Jimmy Swaggart Evangelistic Association’s work is the most effective missions outreach God has going on in the entire world today.”

Pride goeth before the fall, and it certainly did.

I mentioned above that our mayor seems to be considering running for other offices. The newspaper estimates that Nagin has at least half-million in his re-election kitty right now. Since his re-election in May of last year, he has held fund-raisers in Chicago and Philadelphia, and this March he pulled in some $200,000 in downtown New Orleans, according to his campaign treasurer. A few days ago he spoke to a high-powered group in Kansas City and no doubt took home a sackful of cash.

Nagin, whose approval record is about the same as President Bush’s, 33 percent according to a poll two months ago, says he’s getting a lot of encouragement to run for higher office. “I’m going to keep all my options open,” he told the Kansas City Star Thursday.

The Times-Picayune speculates that he’s thinking of running for governor or congress.

We shake our heads in disbelief. Hubris is alive and well in this man. (Note to Ginger: “Hubris” means the really, really ugly kind of pride.)