Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana vindicated his extraordinary hubris in 2006 when he ran for reelection (and won) despite reports that the FBI not only caught him on videotape accepting a bribe with marked bills under the table, literally, while dining at the Ritz, but later found those bills stored amongst $90,000 stashed in the freezer of his Washington, DC townhouse.
But here’s how I put his remarkable feat into perspective back then:
[S]aving his job is one thing. Beating FBI charges against him is quite another. Indeed, I suspect Jefferson’s victory will be pyrrhic at best…
I was not at all surprised yesterday when federal prosecutors announced a 16-count indictment against Jefferson on charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering, all of which carry a penalty of over 200 years in jail…
And, just as I predicted this indictment, I predict that Jefferson will be found guilty and imprisoned for the rest of his life…and deservedly so.
[Feds indict Congressman William Jefferson… I told you so, The iPINIONS Journal, June 5, 2007]
With his trial still pending, however, Jefferson had good reason to believe he would be able to continue swimming after this election cycle in what Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decried as the political swamp that Washington has become. And after he fended off a number of challengers in primaries a couple months ago, I lamented not only that predominantly black voters in his district of Louisiana had missed another opportunity to redeem themselves, but also that Jefferson would be defeated only when a cow flies over the moon.
Therefore, it came as a pleasant surprise on Saturday when Republican Anh “Joseph” Cao, a little-known Vietnamese American, defeated Jefferson in congressional elections, which were postponed by Hurricane Gustav. And I can only surmise that Jefferson’s erstwhile supporters finally realized that there’s no racial pride in supporting an unrepentant crook.
But the symbolism is not lost on me that – just as Jefferson made history in 1991 when he became the first black elected to Congress from Louisiana since Reconstruction (i.e., the quixotic era of black liberation from 1865 to 1877), Cao, 41, made history on Saturday when he became the first Vietnamese American ever elected to Congress.
After all, Vietnam haunts America’s military history almost as much as slavery haunts its political history.
That said, I don’t know how much of a future Cao has in American politics with a name that is pronounced “cow”. Although, having defeated someone with a presidential name like William Jefferson, he’s admittedly off to a good start….
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