Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Bobby Jindal: The Republican Who Would Be Obama

I don’t write about politics much. For one thing, I don’t find it that interesting. More importantly, politics is well covered already by people who have a lot more talent and energy for it than I do. They do a great job, no one needs my two-cents to help them understand politics. I prefer to keep to topics that I feel strongly about.

Today I discovered that I feel strongly about Bobby Jindal. Just having read about him, and reading a couple of quotes, I was already leaning against him. Like his recent posturing over, and rejection of, Louisiana’s share of the bail-out money for unemployment insurance. I thought that was cruel, partisan and stupid, like cutting off other people’s noses to spite someone’s face. Today I actually saw him deliver an important speech, and it became official on the spot, I fucking hate him.

It was the Republican “response” to President Obama’s faux State of the Union speech. After a bad start he just wasted a lot of time and air on discredited Republican talking-points, self-serving autobiography and outright lies. Jindal’s no great public speaker, that’s for sure. I could give him a run for his money myself, and that’s my definition of “slightly above mediocre.”

Never under-estimating the gullibility of their electorate, these Republicans keep repeating that they are the party of limited government, personal responsibility and conservative fiscal policy. Mr. Governor Jindal used these actual words, like they were cut in stone somewhere. Sure, make that limited government authority over corporations, as in “states rights,” the “right to work,” “Internet responsibility,” and “limited regulation;” and let’s have some personal responsibility, as in you’re on your own, you get sick after working for thirty years at something and the heck with you, go ask somebody at the church if your kids are hungry, and just forget that operation right now, and no, you can’t sleep on that park bench.

That any Republican can still have the unmitigated gall to even mention the words “fiscal” and “conservative” in the same sentence defies credence. Return with me now to those days of recent yore, when a Republican president and a Republican congress squandered a running budget surplus, shamelessly channeled potential government tax revenues and no-bid contracts to their friends and contributors, started an un-necessary and disastrous trillion-dollar-plus war on false pretenses, and enabled our banking professionals to give up their fiduciary duties and turn to outright piracy. We all watched it happen, and we remember it all, and we all know who did it, and why.

Bobby Jindal was around for all of that, and he remembers it just fine. He was even in congress for some of it, before he ran back to the briar patch, I mean bayou patch. Today he was just speechifying, spin-doctoring. Rush Limbo’s audience numbers convince these guys that it’s all still working, that somebody still believes them. Don’t forget, lots of us listen to Rush to laugh at how pompous and stupid he is, and especially to consider how stupid you’d have to be to think he was right.

Governor Bobby delivered all of this crap in a reedy little voice with a stupid grin on his face. He delivered this authorized version of the usual pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain bullshit in the condescending manner of a fellow whose time in the Little Pond has convinced him that he is a Big Fish. Like a semi-talented high school debater who has yet to face really talented opposition.

The absolutely worst moments:

1. When he repeated that meme about “sending our children the bill” for the stimulus package. All Republicans have done since Reagan was to take the money for themselves and their friends and send the bill to our children. They have shamelessly inflated the national debt at every opportunity, blaming it on “Communism,” or “9-11,” all the while making sure that the money-rain falls on the right people, the right industries, the right “class.” Just look at any national debt chart if you don’t believe me. Christ-on-a-crutch, just look at the last eight years.

2. When he went on and on about how Louisiana had gotten over that Katrina mess on its own, by self-help, without a big government welfare bailout. “Private citizens with their own little boats . . . Bobby Jindal’s here! Let’s go rescue people!” We watch TV, Bobby, Louisiana got lots of federal money. Like it could be otherwise! How could the fed’s not help out in a case like that? Is Bobby saying that he wishes America were a country where your little corner of the place could get hit by some act of God like Hurricane Katrina, or a huge earthquake, or an explosion of Mt. Saint Helen, and the federal government could just say, go on dudes, do your thing, we admire your courage and self-reliance?

Bobby Jindal is ugly, he dresses funny, he’s a horrible speaker, and if he believes half of the things that he says about government and religion he’s borderline insane. He’s a no-talent who is being humored by the Republican party strictly because of his brown skin and his (apparent) lack of ethics (criminal) convictions.

Good luck, boys and girls. With rising stars like Jindal and Sarah Palin, a front man like Limbo, and nothing but the same old crazy ideas . . . well, you figure it out.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only positive on Jindal is he made Obama look so good. I couldn't believe how outrageous Jindal's speech was and neither could the wise old commentators on PBS.

fred c said...

I did catch some commentary. Even that milktoast Liberal-Conservative David Brooks panned it.

Rory Cripps said...

FRED: Dr. Cripps, Proud republican, offers his two-cents, here. As you may be aware, I remain, to this day, a registered Republican. Therefore I have no axe to grind when I state the following: Great comment and insight, on your part, because in my opinion you hit the nail on the head. The Republican party, at this point, has virtually completed it's suicide attempt. However, unlike many suicides, the Republican Party performs the act without dignity, and in a public setting, and can't even compose a lucid and honest "suicide note" for all the world to see. Indeed the Republican party is, now, so beaten-up and desperate that it resorts to parading around hacks like Jindal in a last-ditch effort to show how "inclusive" it is. The Republicans just don't seem to catch on to the fact that, in these financially-strapped times, "out-sourcing" just ain't the way to go and that it doesn't make for good PR. In my opinion, the Republican Party is going the way that the Democrat Party went subsequent and consequent to the Civil War. I'm a big fan of "checks and balances" and I don't like to see one-party rule. In fact, I'd really like to see a viable third-party emerge within the American political scene. I believe that the time is ripe for the emergence of an ecletic/down-to-earth third-party that will ultimately replace the Republican Party . . . I love the thought of a "loyal opposition" . . . .

Rory Cripps said...

P.S. PBS? JEEZ!

fred c said...

It may sound funny, but I would like to see a two party system where one party favored the little guy and one party favored the big guy. That's a natural tension in the demographic. Both sides are necessary to a stable republic. As I used to say to my subordinates in warehouses: I am the head and you are the hands (my way or the highway).

The Republicans have painted themselves into a corner by treating the "hands" in America as a disposable, replaceable, almost unnecessary commodity, tradeable for "hands" out in the Third-World somewhere, as long as the money came in. But, damn it, they're Americans too.

Let the Republicans take their brand out to local elections in states that will remain unmentioned (but I mean the ones that lost the Civil War). Replace them with a new second party to represent the rich, a party with a sense of patriotism (and a sense of humor wouldn't hurt either).

fred c said...

P.S. I needed those guys in the warehouses, I couldn't do seven man-days of work everyday by myself.

And I mean a loyal opposition kind of rich man's party. This Republican party is like the Soviets, there's no discussion, no compromise, "here's a list of what we want."

Anonymous said...

Fred,
You are the lawyer; I'm not. In my opinion, until the US Supreme Court takes another bite at the apple, and nullifies the Santa Clara Co. v. Southhern Pacific RR case, corporate America maintains the upper hand,regardless of which party is in power. This case was decided in 1886, when the court ruled, without argument, that corporations are persons and are afforded the same rights as individuals under the 14th Amendment. Something is seriously wrong with this logic. No?

Anonymous said...

Fred,
Your comments are spot on. You are the lawyer; I'm not. Having said that, I am of the opinion that unless the US Supreme Court takes another bite at the apple, and revisists and negates Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific RailRoad (1886), the corporate "individuals" will hold the winning hand in American politics. It is rather interesting that the court ruled corporations are persons, and protected under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, without argument.

fred c said...

I missed one vote, in California, for Obama, he didn't need it; I do pay taxes, property taxes and everything else on community property income; I came to Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer; shut the fuck up.

Rory Cripps said...

Is there another one out there are is it just the usual suspect?