Louisiana Voice

I had no sooner posted my story of earlier today when I received a text from a friend asking me what was up with what he described as an Eddie Rispone “hit piece” against Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Pleading ignorance, I asked what he was talking about. He said it was an ad that’s running that features a LouisianaVoice story—obviously something that would reflect badly on Edwards.

So, I captured the 30-second ad which opens with aerial footage of the devastating 2016 flood that ravaged southeast Louisiana.

The ad, which says Edwards was caught “flat-footed” (Not really too unbelievable since the victims, yours truly included, were also caught flat-footed and had little time to try and save anything), quickly cuts to a legislative hearing in which Edwards is grilled by a grandstanding lawmaker (more interested in making a political point than in helping victims) who demanded to know how many people were displaced.

Click HERE to see the ad.

The legislator, seizing the opportunity to cast Edwards in as bad a light as possible, when told by Edwards that he didn’t have a clue how many people were impacted, asked, “You’re that clueless?”

That was patently unfair and at its very best, a cheap shot by a snotty-nosed political opportunist.

That was bad enough, but at the 12-second point of the ad, the ad, purchased by the Republican Governors Association PAC flashed a huge headline superimposed over an image of Edwards as he testified.

The headline read: “Flood Recovery Government Contracts Provide Riches to Consultants.”

The source of the headline: a LouisianaVoice story dated March 7, 2018.

I went to our archives and pulled up the story. Here is the LINK.

As you can see, the actual headline reads: “Hurricane, flood recovery government contracts provide riches to consultants, little else but frustration to victims.”

The ad conveniently deletes the words “Hurricane” and “little else but frustration to victims.”

That’s because the story, while citing a $15,000 campaign contribution to Edwards by IEM, which subsequently landed a $308 million contract, concentrated more on administrative costs and the frustrations flood victims encountered with FEMA. Frustrations with things like knowing that of the $1.3 billion appropriated for reconstruction, only $207 million had actually been allocated 19 months after the flood. And today, after another 19 months, little has changed.

And while I’m still smarting over the lack of progress in disbursing recovery funds now three years-plus after the flood, IEM could hardly be classified as a political crony of Edwards, its owner’s $15,000 contribution notwithstanding. Bobby Jindal, Rispone’s mentor, after all, received far more than that from the principals of the Baton Rouge Business Report and its publisher landed a spot on the LSU Board of Supervisors and on the Superdome Board. Likewise, Jindal also appointed Lee Mallet to the LSU Board after receiving more than $150,000 in contributions from Mallett’s family and businesses.

Compared to those contributions, IEM’s $15,000 would hardly classify it as what the ad describes as a”top campaign donor.”

But back to my story of March 7, 2018. The thrust of that story was the contracts awarded for recovery from Katrina and the ensuing fraud. And the main point made regarding flood recovery was not the contract to one firm, which the ad misleadingly said failed, but the ineptness of FEMA which threw up roadblock after roadblock to recovery.

But the main point here is how a candidate, or those working on his behalf, can take a half-truth and turn it into a campaign issue.

It’s done at every level of politics and no one should be surprised at the practice and everyone should cast a jaundiced eye at all such campaign rhetoric although frankly, I firmly believe that despite the expenditure of the millions of dollars on ads in the waning days of the campaign, no more than a dozen or so votes have been changed. Despite those who claim to be undecided in the polls, I believe voters made their decisions weeks ago.