Y'know, it used to be that a Republican would at least wait until his party's presidential convention before he'd start lying through his teeth to the country. Now---with Jindal---we get to experience a Republican who lies to the country a full 42 months before the convention is even called to order.

I suppose that's what we call being "a Progressive Republican candidate"....

Don't mind BJ: he's not lying, he's just being "Reaganesque."

Was he under fire from the famed NOLA snipers at the time?

What do you mean "start"? They never, ever stop.

Do governors keep schedules during natural disasters? My hunch is some flunky wrote down everywhere he was during that period. Someone needs to do a FOIA.

I have to disagree. That was a stupid story. I knew it was false the moment he uttered it. It's straight out of Right Wing Fantasy literature. Just take 2 seconds to imagine this scenario and if you know anything about how humans operate it breaks down in about 50 places. I was surprised that a bigger deal was made out of this obviously made up story but I guess the media doesn't like to accuse someone of lying based on mere implausibility and there was so much else that was bad about the speech.

details details details. never let truth get in the way of a good story.

jz -- they do but jindal wasn't governor at the time.

He took a little artistic license, but the thrust of the story -- that potential rescuers were turned away because they didn't have license/registration papers -- seems to be true.

There's also a legitimate explanation of why this may have been the case. If someone purporting to be a rescuer is actually a looter with a stolen boat, do you really want their "help"?

There was so much else that was wrong with this anecdote in particular and Jindal's speech in general, why dwell on this?

"It'd be even better if it were true."

C'mon Steve. WTF does truth have to do with anything a rethug says!

The poor republican was just trying to make a point about how much better Louisiana and New Orleans would have been after Katrina if the federal government had not gotten in the way!

What difference would it have made if he had told a true story to make an indefensible point!

The bullets of Tuszla have reached the lower Mississippi.

You mean the story isn't true? You could knock me down with a feather.

Dave Munger, Citation please.

"Tonight, on behalf of our leaders in Congress and my fellow Republican governors, I say this: Our party is determined to regain your trust."

I'll start by lying to you about a high speed rail project from Las Vegas to Disneyland, then I'll lie to you about almost being arrested for trying to rescue Katrina survivors trapped on roofs.

If that doesn't show I'm trustworthy, I'll do a little dishonest political grandstanding about the stimulus law. For example, I'll call it a spending law and deny that the President tried to be bi-partisan when he called on Republicans to contribute.

There you have it Rush says to back off, so I must be worthy of trust.

I'm Bobby Jindal and I did not not approved this message.

I'm sure Piyush's next version will include him drawing a cross in the dirt with a rifle.

It'd be even better if Jindal said that Lee wanted to put his finger in the levee to stop the flooding, but the EPA told him he needed to file an environmental impact statement first.

Cripes. Paul Harvey would not believe this story.

At least Jindal didn't claim to be dodging sniper fire in Bosnia.

Dave wrote:

> He took a little artistic license, but the thrust of the story. . . seems to be true.

Sorry, no. By that standard, Hillary Clinton's landing-under-sniper-fire story from the campaign "seems to be true," too, because Bosnia was a dangerous place, and snipers were shooting at people. Just not at the Tuzla airport that day.

She lied, and so did Jindal.

Ron,

From the DailyKos summary:

I just read it, but there is a second Sheriff who played prominently with Jindal, Jack Stephens from Chalmette, Louisiana, in St. Bernard Parish, Jindal did a lot to help them. The boat rescuers were being blocked from his parish (they are on the east side of New Orleans, directly next to the lower 9th Ward.)

...and...

LEE: I fully believe that when then matter is looked into, we tried to get some boats in the water early on ... Those boats where not allowed to get into the water when they were needed and I just found out about seven days later one of the reason boats couldn't get in was they didn't have enough life preservers and some of them didn't have proof of insurance.

...yes, so some things in Jindal's story don't add up, but clearly, boats were prevented by bureaucracy from heading to rescue.

The larger point: Don't bring up Katrina as a shining example of Republican-style government.

Dave Munger - Katrina is a 'shining' example of republican-style government!

When you are in charge of the government and truly believe that government is the problem, it is an easy step to screwing up the government - to prove your point.

That is the major point of what has happened under the 28 consecutive years of republican presidencies between Jimmy Carter & Barack Obama. FYI, I remain convinced that Bill Clinton (DINO/DLC) was the least harmful republican president during that timeframe.

Ohh, it should be obvious this story is true . . . just like it was obvious that Mitt Romney watched his father march with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jindal was a US Congressman at the time of Katrina.

His first floor speech after taking office consisted of complaining that Democrats lead by Sen. Boxer and Rep. Tubbs-Jones (RIP) were ruining his celebration of his first day in office by protesting the seating of the 2004 Ohio Electors for GW Bush due to the massive irregularities and voter suppression that took place in the November 2004 presidential election in that state. Which they were allowed to do, by the way.

Democracy can be messy, Bobby. Especially when the will of the people is disregarded. Didn't your father teach you *that* lesson???

were boats asked to stay away? probably. but you know there's a good reason for that, right? it's the same reason that lifeguards often end up having to rescue both the guy drowning and the good samaritan who tried to save him. a flooded city is an incredibly hazardous place, the last thing you want to do it put more civilians (who's training and capability is unknown) into harm's way and potentially needing rescue themselves.

Here's another weird thing about Jindal's story. He described Lee as "a good friend of mine." Not being from Louisiana, I assumed the sheriff was still alive. I didn't know he was dead until watching Keith Olbermann 24 hours later.

Weird. Just weird.

All of you seem to be missing the axiom: When a republican tells two lies, they cancel each other out.

If you do a thorough fact check of Jindel's speech, I am sure that you will find that there are an even number of lies, therefore canceling each other out.

Yeah, this story totally set off my bullshit detector, even without an investigation. Even if it's true, it's obviously been embellished from multiple retellings.

Oddly, the biggest BS part of it is his "Sheriff, what's got you so mad" line which is the way people talk when they're telling heavily embellished stories, but not how people talk in real life. There are just certain words and phrasings that are included in fake stories, and this is one of them. The other issue is that real life generally doesn't set-up such perfect punchlines like this. A good storyteller knows how to tell any story in an interesting way, but punchlines rarely line up so perfectly like this.

The fact that reality doesn't align with it makes perfect sense, as it was an unlikely story to begin with. And even if it happened, it's unlikely that it happened in this polished a fashion. And it most likely never happened. Goodbye, Jindal. I can't say it was nice knowing you.

And then I said to those bureaucrats "Thanks, but no thanks on boat registrations" and sold that redtape on eBay!
(Applause)

Does anyone have any idea what the heck "apeman" is trying to say? Is this snark? Is it irony?
Is he an idiot? On the face of it, it seems bigoted (Using "Gunga--not ganga, BTW--Din" to disparage Jindal's ethnicity) and uninformed (Jindal is a convert to very strict Catholicism.) Maybe apeman is making some subtle comedic/satiric point that I'm missing about Kipling's poetry or British colonialism or something...

Or, alternatively, "apeman's" weird musings could just disappear from the thread, rendering my bewilderment irrelevant, but saving others the wasted minutes of thinking about his comments!

but saving others the wasted minutes of thinking about his comments!

when did you ever worry about wasting our minutes, neil?

Jindal is a piker.

Remember Ronald Reagan's fable about the trapped ball turret gunner in WW2 whose crew-mate chose to perish with him rather than bail out of their doomed plane? Or his absurd fantasy about the German and American infantrymen who declared a private truce one night during the Battle of the Bulge, and agreed to share the same farm house in order to escape the bitter cold?

Remember when the Bush administration Big Lied the nation into unleashing war?

I wonder if Jindal, who left for Disney World before anyone could ask him why he's such a damned liar, has taken over the "It's a Small World" ride and demanded to pilot his own boat, insurance and licensing be damned.

Would you racists leave Jindal alone!?!

-Ann Althouse

You mean a republican is lying? I'd say this is a "dog bites man" story, but dogs don't always bite.

Those of you who insist on using Governor Jindal's given name, rather than the names he chooses to go by, might want to think about what that says about you.

It's of a piece with the right wing's use of "Barack Hussein Obama" as a perjorative. Is that the place you want to be?

Wonder why he didn't call up his pal George W Bush ahd have him cut through the red tape in his capacity as Commander in Chief.

A RightWinger lying for political gain ?

I'm shocked ! SHOCKED !!!

Doretta, WTF are you talking about. Not one person here has refered to Governor Jindal by the name Piyush. Steve refered to him as Governor Bobby Jindal and commenters have refered to him as Governor Jindal, Jindal (not entirely respectful but commonly used for people we like as well as those we dislike) and as Bobby.

P.S. in case you were unaware, Bobby is a nickname he chose for himself and the name he reportedly prefers to go by.