A Picture of Paradise

I was so terribly disappointed in my recent duck hunt at the White Lake Hunting Preserve.

What a dump!

First of all, you have to leave at zero o'clock and travel down what looks like the Lebanon Highway to a falling-down boathouse somewhere south of Gueydan - way, way south.

Then they throw you on this boat that looks likes what's left of the African Queen to travel in pitch darkness across the Intracoastal Canal to yet another following-down boathouse.

We were given token cups of coffee in what remains of the clubhouse, then whisked by whichever mud boats started out in the marsh.

The blinds are holes-in-the-marsh surrounded by sunk and sinking decoys while the guide smoked cigarettes, drank coffee and talked nonstop. We did manage to shoot some teal, did get back and we vowed (I took the Cameron Parish District Attorney Glenn Alexander as my guest) never to come back, even at Gov. Mike Foster's groveling invitation.

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS A CROCK, CLEVERLY FABRICATED BY ME TO DISSUADE EVERYONE BUT ME, GLENN AND POSSIBLY OUR WIVES FROM EVER WANTING TO HUNT (OR FISH) AT WHITE LAKE!

Paradise is an understatement! You know how pretty it is: Foster, we were told, has only been to White Lake once for 45 minutes. That's all the time it took him to realize that the huge 72,000 acre marsh and accommodations should be his and his buddies.

It didn't take Glenn and me nearly that long. White Lake was much like I remembered as a kid; a pastoral setting that you can only get to by boat (adds tons to the mystery) and the kind of subdued elegance you find on a post card.

You turn into a long canal bordered on both banks by live oaks planted absolutely symmetrically. That canal leads you to the boathouse which is resplendent; Glenn stared at the beams in disbelief, thinking the whole boathouse was built of redwood.

Turns out it was cedar. You walk up to the clubhouse which is one-story with bedrooms on either wing and the hospitality areas in the middle. The stainless steel barbecue pit is a huge clue that everything inside is also first-class.

We went into the marsh in beautiful fiberglass mud boats powered by 454 cubic inch Ford V-8 engines with straight exhausts. It is nearly impossible to describe how those boats sound as they power up to a plane but it is like a Harley-Davidson motorcycle on top of a big surfboard.

The blinds were spotless! Galvanized steel that had been hot-dipped and were at least 30 years old with not a drop of water in the bottom. That sort of maintenance breeds more maintenance and our guide, Wes LeMaire, was justifiably proud of his surroundings and was a tremendous professional and White Lake historian.

We were done at 8 a.m., 12 teal on good shooting, and Glenn and I high-fived and were more than a little blown-up after that adventure. (Glenn shot real well and when I asked him about it, he said it was just luck, that he hadn't hunted but once the year before. I'll take him again, just to check it out.)

Coffee, donuts and eclairs followed in the clubhouse which is surrounded by all manner of citrus trees, persimmons, etc. We toured all the facilities but one and we had yet to see the first spider web, piece of paper out of place, whatever; I mean the place was spotless.

No one knows or will say how this self-appointed White Lake management committee (my fellow directors) will work but they've vowed not to hunt or fish there which I thought was commendable. They did say that in the 51-year history of White Lake, it only got hunted about 10 times a year.

Glenn and I could fix that! And Glenn is just spoiled beyond belief. He told me unequivocally that the rest of his duck hunting days would have to be White Lake-equivalent or not.

He is delusional cause there aren't any other White Lakes around.

I have decided to concede trying to be a director since they can't hunt or fish there. However, if I got appointed a director, that's the first thing I'd change. They gave the 10 of us who got hunts through the lottery system green caps with White Lake lettered on the front and a huge mallard in the middle.

I don't know about Glenn, but I wore mine to bed.

Low Lights from Stormy Election Season

Here are my low lights from a primary election season in which two storms from the Gulf nearly matched the gusts of wind coming from the campaign trail.

Before the storms came the summer of high anxiety, in which the tradition of door-to-door campaigning was disrupted by fears of a serial murderer and his mosquito counterparts carrying the West Nile virus.

In Baton Rouge, two school board candidates confronted each other in a parking lot, as one accused the other of taking her campaign brochures from windshields. "I kept saying, 'Get off, get off. If you don't get off I'm going to call the police,'" one candidate told the Baton Rouge Advocate. And that was the man.

A school board candidate in Youngsville was disqualified when he listed as his residence his wife's address, from which he was barred by restraining order from coming within 100 feet.

State election fraud investigators were called to the Iberville Parish courthouse, where they found "a rowdy crowd" waiting to absentee vote. Voters "reeked of alcohol," an investigator told the Advocate, "as if someone was targeting drug addicts or alcoholics to get them to absentee vote."

A Jefferson Parish judge, who first won election by questioning his opponent's integrity, declined to seek re-election after he was indicted for conspiracy to plant drugs in the truck of a man he had a grudge with. Ronnie Bodenheimer stands trial in March.

Corruption is one thing, but when is the last time you heard of judge ousted for incompetence? The state Supreme Court removed Judge Sharon Hunter of New Orleans and barred her from qualifying for re-election due to her "stunningly profound and grossly pervasive" mismanagement of her courtroom and trial records. The judge pleaded to let the voters determine her fate, but the justices weren't taking any chances.

Court of Appeal Judge Charles Jones, who was suspended and fined for slugging fellow Judge Steve Plotkin and cursing Judge Miriam Waltzer in a courthouse fracas earlier this year, used the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur to pen a letter of apology. Apology rejected, as both Plotkin and Waltzer said Jones, opposed for re-election, was more motivated by politics than contrition. While not achieving atonement, Jones got something better, his re-election, when his opponent later withdrew.

The forces of good government have found a novel tool for improving the candidate pool: the state constitution. A 1998 amendment barring unpardoned ex-felons from seeking office for 15 years was used to disqualify veteran Shreveport City Councilman Joe Shyne, who had served a year in federal prison in 1994 for taking a bribe. A mayoral and another city council candidate were similarly bounced because of their priors, which included aggravated assault and arson with intent to defraud.

Sen. Max Malone, author of the amendment, seems guided by the principle that the chances of a Louisiana officeholder being convicted are good enough that no one should get a head start. Malone wondered how many ex-felons are running for office across the state this year: "We've got 'em coming out of the woodwork up here."

He might look at Acadiana, where a recent Lafayette Advertiser story cataloged the police records of nine candidates running for chief of police.

The rap sheet doesn't include the former Duson chief serving time for hauling marijuana for a local dealer, or the Grand Coteau chief, who decided not to qualify after being arrested in August for buying a Schedule IV narcotic.

Some of the incumbents and challengers were indicted but cleared or were convicted of misdemeanors, but two are running for re-election while awaiting felony trials. The chief in Estherwood is charged with malfeasance for allegedly fondling the breasts of a female motorist at a traffic stop. The Carencro police chief, having pleaded no contest to fondling a female dispatcher at a police chiefs convention, was indicted on a new battery charge of using excessive force in a Mardi Gras arrest. Neither can be removed from office, nor the ballot, unless and until convicted.

"As far as the voters go, I feel it did not affect my job as police chief," said Carencro chief Timmy Duhon. For better or worse, that question is now up to the voters.

When national Republicans began running the "Something About Mary" commercials two months ago, claiming that Sen. Landrieu had voted for higher taxes 120 times, the incumbent determined to remain senatorial and "turn the other cheek," as her press secretary explained. Two months and an estimated $1.3 million of ad buys later, Landrieu and her cheeks have had enough. Claiming the ads are falsehoods, she has thrown down the gauntlet and demanded they be pulled from the air. Mind you, she did not demand this of the Republicans, but of the TV stations.

In a letter to TV stations, Landrieu's campaign informed the stations that they have a right to refuse to run commercials they know to be false and misleading. Had one of the Republican candidates placed the same ads, Landrieu could have saved her stamp, because federal law prohibits broadcasters from blocking a candidate's message, even one chocked full of lies. But ads placed by political parties can be rejected if determined to be untrue, as Landrieu is now asking.

To dispute the GOP ad claims, the Landrieu campaign points to an analysis by WWL-TV reporter Stephanie Riegal, who concluded that only 9 of the 120 votes in question were for actual tax increases, five of them on tobacco. Landrieu did vote 101 times against Republican-sponsored tax cuts while, in most cases, voting for Democrat-sponsored bills which provided smaller tax cuts. Yet, the crack reporting by the WWL news staff failed to impress the business office at WWL, which has been running the GOP ads like every other station in Louisiana. "You question how immediate is the concern if they just dropped a letter in the mailbox," said WWL general manager Jimmie Phillips, who wonders about Landrieu's real motive. "What it's done is stirred up enough interest that they get some print articles."

Like this column, tough it questions Landrieu's politics instead of her motive. The senator will likely get no relief from the TV stations, who, like many voters, might ask why it took so long for her to speak up. Yes, Sen. John Breaux did come to Landrieu's defense, though with a noticeable lack of outrage for an ally defamed. In Landrieu campaign commercials, Breaux stressed the positive, like her vote for The Big One, the president's income-tax cut, after Breaux, as he points out, fashioned a final compromise.

But Louisiana voters might be accustomed to, or expecting, a more visceral reaction. Any legislator or police juror so impugned would be on the air within 24 hours declaring, "They are no-good lying liars!"

That's probably the response the National Republican Senatorial Committee was hoping for, but Landrieu isn't taking the bait. She wants to avoid a partisan battle and to keep this a race between her and three so-far visible challengers, who so far have been too busy quarreling among themselves to lay a glove on Landrieu.

The whole basis of her campaign is that she puts her state ahead of her party and can work well with senators on both sides of the aisle, despite the horrible things her esteemed Republican colleagues are saying about her.

Yet, the Republicans show no sign of letting up. "They obviously have more money than they know what to do with," says a Landrieu staffer, which means there is no reason to doubt they won't spend another $1 million, even $2 million, beating up on her for the next four weeks.

Until one of her three GOP challengers gain some traction, she can afford to hold her fire on the Washington Republicans. But if one catches on in a hurry, Landrieu could find herself in a bind in the campaign's closing weeks. As they say in Hollywood, a rumor that goes undenied for 24 hours is true. The same can be said for a political ad after a couple of months and a couple of million dollars worth of air time. Instead of trotting Breaux out to defend her again, or asking TV stations to protect her honor, at some point Mary Landrieu will need to personally confront her accusers, even if they aren't on the ballot.