Live boy or dead girl?

No branch of government is clean in Louisiana. But don't sneer at the Cajuns for Edwin Edwards and Huey Long and now John Weimer - the federal gummint is corrupt, too, by money and by power.

Judge Robert Nader, dissenting, could barely contain his disbelief, saying the initial decision was infected by “approximately $1 million in contributions from a very financially interested individual” to Judge Batchelder, a Republican, and to the local Republican Party.

Make no mistake about this, though, both parties are to blame.

But any state where judges raise campaign cash to run for office is more subject to this obvious conflict of interest.