According to this New York Times article, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has been sentenced to ten years in federal prison.  Nagin was convicted on 20 federal corruption charges in February, mostly relating to kickbacks he solicited and received from contractors looking to get city work during his term as Mayor of New Orleans.

Why did Nagin go bad (assuming he wasn’t always a crook)?  Part of the answer may be revealed in this New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial:  Greed.

But greed is often just a convenient reason accompanying a more insidious trait common among corrupt public officials.  Often public officials become corrupt because they believe they are smarter than their victims (the public) and smarter than their adversaries in the criminal justice system.

Corrupt public officials also develop a sense of entitlement.   They begin to think that because they see themselves as altruistic public servants, they are entitled to take a little something for themselves.  After all, they are smarter than everyone else, so it’s only right that they should be compensated by their inferiors for their own superiority.

Greed, a sense of superiority, and a sense of entitlement.  Ray Nagin had all of those.  Now he will have ten years to think about better times.