Yep. It's official. Jindal's toast.

Well, that didn't take long. Another "reformist" Louisiana governor has been eaten by the natives.

IN THIS CASE, the "natives" would be the Louisiana Legislature. The poverty-stricken public servants -- who surely must be underpaid and underappreciated if sheer repetition of a sob story has the power to make it true -- have voted to pull themselves up by the taxpayers' bootstraps. And some struck a "let them eat cake" pose toward those who object to paying more for the same old dysfunctional policymaking:

Sen. Ann Duplessis, D-New Orleans, asked colleagues to go along with House changes in her Senate Bill 672 that reduced the proposed legislative pay from $50,700 a year to $37,500. Lawmakers currently get a base salary of $16,800 a year.

Although floor debate was almost nonexistent in both houses, Duplessis suggested that people -- many of whom have jammed radio talk shows, Internet blogs and the Capitol switchboard -- just don't understand how much time lawmakers put in to the part-time job.

"We will not let a few radio (talk show) people dictate what we know is important," Duplessis said after the vote. She said lawmakers have been in session off and on since February and will probably be called back for one or two special sessions before a regular fiscal session next year.

She said the pay raise is needed to help lawmakers offset pay lost from their regular jobs.

"We should be focusing now on moving forward with the people's business," she said. "Once people understand what we do, what our schedules are like . . . they will understand."

RIIIIIIIIGHT. Do you think the Times-Picayune reporter kept a straight face writing that one up?

The "people's business" -- like once-again trying to sneak creationism through the back door of the high-school science lab. And passing pay raises for themselves . . . while health-care, social services and higher education get the business.

"Fiscal restraint" ain't for you and it ain't for me, it's for those sick people and eggheads behind the tree.

And what does the Great Reformer, Gov. Buddy Roemer Gov. Bobby Jindal, propose to do about that "Marie Antoinette meets the Dukes of Hazzard" orgy at the capitol, a mere three floors below his office?

Same as the last time we checked in -- nothing. Here's the gub'na's statement after Monday's Senate vote for final passage:

"I'm very sorry to see the legislature do this. More than doubling legislative pay is not reasonable, and the public has been very clear on that.

"I will keep my pledge to let them govern themselves and make their own decisions as a separate branch of government. I will not let anything, even this clearly excessive pay raise, stop us from moving Louisiana forward with a clear plan for reform."

THERE ARE TWO possibilities here. Either Jindal was in cahoots with the Legislature all along and is blowing smoke up the voters' butts, or a governor who wields near-dictatorial powers just got rolled by a body that strives for color coordination, lest its fairer members become "hormonal."

And once you get rolled by the Legislature once, it's going to happen one more time . . . and one more once . . . and one more twice. . . .

In fact, by caving in the face of extortion -- and, really, that's the most charitable explanation for Jindal's non-action -- the new governor didn't salvage his "clear plan for reform" at all. What he did was kill it -- such as it was.

No, the only agenda on the table now is the Louisiana Legislature's. Because, as Jindal has made clear, whatever crazy-ass thing its members want, they are apt to get.

Let me know how that "reform" works out for you, Louisiana.

Me, I'm going to crack open a cold one, sit back and enjoy the show (from a safe distance . . . like Nebraska). It's Roemertime.