Katrina: Haley's Come-on

UPDATED

I've written about the "golden opportunity" [1] right-wing ideologists spied in the landfall of Hurricane Katrina for forcing what they could never accomplish through the democratic process. Now it's time to call out the Republicans who also saw the hurricane as a golden opportunity to line their and their cronies' pockets.

Exhibit A, B, C, and so on through Z are the associates of Haley Barbour, the former tobacco lobbyist and Republican National Committee chair who won election as Mississippi's governor in 2003. That was a busy year for our Haley. His other super-special 2003 project was setting up a consulting company, New Bridge Strategies [2] to help with the looting (I mean "assisting clients to evaluate take advantage of business opportunities") of what was supposed to be—oh, those bygone days of conservative confidence!—"postwar" Iraq. Ah, the wonder-working powers of conservative public service: "One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out 30 Iraqi stores," one New Bridge partner was quoted saying in The Washington Post [3]; "a Wal-Mart could take over the country."

So what was Haley Barbour's contribution to the post-Katrina reconstruction?

Here's what his Wikipedia [4] entry says. He appears to have written it himself:

Barbour's response was characterized by a concerted effort at evacuation, tough-minded talk on looters and an unwillingness to blame the federal government. His response was compared, favorably, to that of Rudy Giuliani in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Barbour credited the countless government workers who helped southern Mississippi cope with the hurricane. But Barbour was praised by the coast's citizens as a strong leader who can communicate calm to the public and provide “a central decision-making point for when things get balled up or go sideways, which they do,” as Barbour says.

Barbour was blunt with the facts about the utter devastation of the coast, but his own demeanor in public appearances suggested that the state would summon the will to rebuild. Mississippi also reopened all of its public schools by November 2005.

What a mensch.

Bloomberg News, on the other hand, recorded, in an August 16 dispatch, an alternate set of highlights [5]: that he made of the fifteen billion dollar pot of federal reconstruction funds a hot tub in which his friends and family could frolic. There's the Barbour nephew, a lobbyist who got into the business a block from the governor's mansion practically on his uncle's inauguration day, who "saw his fees more than double in the year after his uncle appointed him to a special-reconstruction panel." Uncle Haley made him the "unpaid" executive director of the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal. Well and truly, there are lots of ways to get paid. (The governor's lawyer helpfully explains: Haley Barbour is "naturally not going ot be disinclined to help those boys when he can." For his part, young Henry Barbour claims martyr status: having "the same last name as Governor Barbour clearly puts a target on my back." Poor kid.)

There's another nephew's wife, whose FEMA trailer company was raided by FBI agents in June. "On June 21, FBI agents searched three Alcatec offices, seizing computers and documents as part of an investigation into what the warrant said was possible mail fraud. The company didn't respond to repeated requests for comment."

"Meanwhile, the governor's own former lobbying firm, which he says is still making payments to him, has represented at least four clients with business linked to the recovery." To put it mildly.

The non-Barbour two-thirds of Barbour Griffith & Rogers represented, for instance, the New York company that bought the Hard Rock Casino in Biloxi—faxing their businesss forms from a Kinko's and filing their personal addresses instead of the firm's in an apparent attempt to hide the appearance of impropriety. "It isn't exactly clear," Bloomberg concludes, "what ties Governor Barbour retains to the lobbying firm." As of last year he was listed as its president. Though unlike every other Mississippi governor he's kept secret his tax returns.

Today, Bloomberg published an update [6] about what he might feel like he has to hide: the fishy blind trust Barbour signed upon his inauguration as governor. It turns out Barbour still receives a secret income of $25,000 a month from his lobbying firm. He also may or may not have profited to the tune of $694,856 from stock he's been shown to have owned in the company in 2003, in a stock buyback scheme his partners engineered in 2004.

Those partners wouldn't answer Bloomberg's questions on the subject—though one partner did claim he "earns no income" from the lobbying firm. Bill Clinton dithered about what the meaning of "is" is. Haley Barbour prefers similar jesuitical complexities when it comes to the question of what "income" is. Which doesn't change the fact that the governor of Mississippi has a heck of a big stake in the company's ongoing financial health—say, in the success of its plentiful contracts to lobby the state on Katrina-related matters.

Yes, Barbour's autobiography Wikipedia entry is right: this is just like Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 response—exploiting human tragedy in order to shake the money tree [7].