'Phantom Police' in New Orleans?

A forwarded "news story" making the rounds since October includes a quote in which New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin defends an alleged policy of listing hundreds of nonexistent police officers on the city payroll as follows: "We did this to deter crime. ... Just as George Washington lit fake campfires to lull the British troops before his surprise attack at Princeton, we in New Orleans have employed a similar strategy." Nagin made no such statement, however, and the piece in which it appears is a satirical column penned for a conservative Web site.  Read more...