I'm telling ya, Jindal's a goober. He wishes he had the cajones to say something like that to a feal fed.

I think you mean "flair."

Nothing's sadder than inadequate flair.

/officespace

It's also worth remembering that if the larger story is true -- "some bureaucrat" really did raise questions that could have interfered with rescue efforts...

It's also worth remembering that allowing untrained civilians unrestricted access to a disaster area, no matter their motivation, often results in additional people requiring rescue.

Hmmm, a republican candidate presumptive for pres
makes shit up in order to lie to the public to appear as something he is not. How unpredictable

Because of Katrina,
Some folks had to die;
Did those folks lose their lives
So that Jindal could lie?

Oh my....

I don't know, yall. Jindal's story has helped me see the light, warts and all. Because of the government's inadequate response to Katrina, I think it behooves us to make the government's response ENTIRELY inadequate, thus turning any natural disaster into a total free-for-all.

Sure, it would appear that in the absence of government services in New Orleans that there was also an absence of citizen services and the whole thing fell apart. But that could only be the government's fault. After all, everyone knows that the best places to live in the world are the places with the least amount of security or infrastructure. You can't get shot in a football stadium if nobody builds the stadium. Think about it.

kind of a rhetorical bridge to nowhere...

Another sad aspect of this story is that Jindal did a great job during the last hurricane, the one which too place right before the GOP National Convention, the one where McCain almost used as an excuse to suspend the convention.

His performance, on television, and without a script, with representatives from all the different governmental agencies participating in the disaster response standing behind him, was an inspiring counterpoint to the Bush/FEMA fiasco.

Before I saw him handling things so well, I just knew he was a republican. After that, and until the last few weeks, I thought he was a new kind of republican. Not that I would vote for him, but I could imagine a lot of people thinking about it.

Yeah, but Al Gore invented the internet.

allowing untrained civilians unrestricted access ... often results in additional people requiring rescue. - doubtful

And that's an important thing to remember, since it is precisely this chaotic scene that Jindal sees as the solution to big government.

I think you mean "flair."

Nothing's sadder than inadequate flair.

Though sometimes in an emergency a flare is just what you need.

The Palin/Plumber wing of the GOP is so far out in their dream world they don't realize it when they are spouting make believe as if it's a factual account. This is just the latest case where we watch as they dance out onto a limb and then saw it off.

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you...

Mofo. And he said it with a straight face. Is there a Rethuglican school for that of thing?

Oh. It's genetic. 'nough said.

Thats a real double dose of stupid. It was idiotic to raise Katrina in the first place, but to do it for a fabricated story? While looking into the camera and trying to sell yourself as a decent honest person?
Did I say double dose? Make mine a triple.

But the governor apparently wanted to add some "flare" to the anecdote.

What you mean is personal flair. For him it wasn't enough to make the story about Lee, he had to make it about HIM.

Wow--just how many lies can one "Republican Rep." tell on the most important evening of his career?

Way to go, Jindal! These lies and deceit are actually the closest yet to an accurate depiction of the Republican Response!

So what else is new?!

I especially enjoyed the story where he and Daddy are so proud of all the grocery choices on the shelves and Daddy Jindal saying to little Bobby: "Americans can do anything".

"Like live with excess and greed, Daddy?"

Gee--we have an obscene gluttony of choices--how many kinds of mustard or olives or soda pop does one nation need? There is a cost for that, you know.

Meanwhile, we still don't have a clue about cancer and our planet is going to hell in a handbasket.

"I have no idea how somebody as smart and experienced as Bobby Jindal would let these lines get into a featured place in his first nationally televised appearance..."

We came to expect Old Man McCain's constant befuddlement with the tools of wizardry that allow people in different rooms, cities and hemispheres to communicate with each other, even about things that happened a long time ago and that Johnny thought could only be uncovered via an arduous hand search through musty paper archives. But Bobby Jindal is what, 37 years old? And he didn't know his public takedown on a big old lie like this would flash across the world 15 minutes after he told the whopper?

Young man in a Republican's body.

You may think I'm being cynical, but I think conservatives lie on purpose, not just to spread misinformation, but also because the inevitable corrections are seen by the Base as proof of the press's perfidy. Why are they picking on that sweet Christian boy?

Next thing, y'all will tell me he didn't perform that exorcism, either.

"bobby" piyush is a natural heir to the gipper. he's already making shit up.
next, he'll be telling us that trees cause pollution, that ketchup is a vegetable, and spinning inspiring yarns about welfare queens and "big strapping bucks" buying steaks with food stamps.

If Jindal wanted to complain, for whatever reason, about the perils of red tape, he could have talked about the New Orleans sheriff who was forced to deal with a burdensome bureaucracy during a crisis.

Yep, he just HAD to make all that other stuff up because otherwise the story would be about a Democrat going against Republican bureaucracy. Couldn't have that!

Meh. This is the sort of thing that good politicians do all the time. The story is truthy, and it tells better when one is personally involved. Hard to fault him much on this.

"New Orleans sheriff"

Harry Lee was sheriff of Jefferson Parish, not Orleans Parish. Few adjoining districts could be more different, politically and otherwise.

Best lie in the response?

"Thank you for listening; God bless you, God bless Louisiana and God bless America"

That's the biggest crock of shit any politician (R or D) has ever uttered.

There are so many levels of inanity in the Jindal story, even if it were true. First, Sheriff Lee, who put out the call for boats in the story, is part of "the government." He had the ability to put the call out for boats and request that they show up at a specific location because he is part of "the government" and had access to government resources (e.g. emergency communications equipment). That type of planning and logistics work is often performed by people labeled "bureaucrats." So, if Jindal is saying Katrina proves government is bad in a crisis, then he is indicting Sheriff Lee's acts.

Sure, Katrina showed that if led by idiots, part of government can fail. And, certainly, all sorts of government officials can make mistakes in times of crisis. It was reported that sheriffs in one parish were preventing refugees from crossing a bridge. If that report is true, does Jindal suggest we eliminate all police departments?

Supposedly, Jindal is thought to be an intellectual shining star. But, in addition to being partially fabricated, this story reveals Jindal to be a rather shallow thinker.

Yes, I too was wondering if the mindless, incompetent bureaucrat at issue wasn't in fact a member of Bush's FEMA, which would also somewhat undermine Jindal's larger point.

A lying Republican? Who'd a thunk...

TW Andrews: "Hard to fault him much on this."

In a way, I agree. This is such a tiny little lie that it doesn't matter much in the face of the rest of the whoppers he told during that speech.

On the other hand, keep in mind that the GOP propaganda machine love taking tiny, unimportant things democrats say and making them out to be lies. And more often than not, the "lie" they latch onto turns out to be utterly true! They crippled Al Gore's presidential candidacy with this tactic.

So as far as I'm concerned, turn-about is fair play. And we have an advantage here, because most of the "lies" the GOP tell *really are* lies. Let's make a sport out of latching onto and debunking every single lie the GOP tells, no matter how small it is.

The bottom line is:
Americans can do anything.
Except operate a functioning government that can rescue people in a natural disaster.
THAT would be un-American.

some additonal info from war room at salon

In its own investigation of the story, Salon has found that, while it is true bureaucrats were delaying the rescue effort, the explanation Jindal gave -- that they wanted to see proof of insurance and registration -- might not be true.

Salon spoke with one man who was part of that rescue effort, Jerry Riggs. Riggs says that, having lived through the frustration of being held up for two and a half hours before he could go save people trapped by the storm, he agrees with the gist of Jindal's story, that the government caused a delay, to the great frustration of the people involved. "You have to understand the situation -- we were all really anxious to get out there and start saving lives," Riggs says. His account of the reason for the delay differs from Jindal's in one crucial way, however. Riggs says the authorities weren't asking about red tape things like insurance or boat registrations. They were checking identification -- possibly, he thinks, in case some of the rescuers never made it back alive.

Post Script: It's also worth remembering that if the larger story is true -- "some bureaucrat" really did raise questions that could have interfered with rescue efforts -- it's a reminder of the inefficiencies of Bush's FEMA operation, not evidence of the inherent shortcomings of the federal government.

I'm really glad you mentioned that, Steve. I think the really important point is, the questionable aspects of Governor Jindal's anecdote aside, the story really illustrates the ineffectiveness of an incompetent Republican administration and, underlying that, the utter idiocy of 30 years of a Reaganomics lack of investment in vital infrastructure.

Not incidentally, in light of Jindal's screed against government spending, Newsweek in Steptember, 2006, made this observation:

Hans Vrijling, a renowned authority on flood control who designed part of the Dutch system, says it should be possible to protect New Orleans--even low-lying sections--from storm surges more than 10 times Katrina's. The price tag: less than $10 billion. … Dan Hitchings, the Army Corps official in charge of Gulf Coast protection, says it may ultimately bring in more Dutch help. But it likely won't know for sure for more than a year. The Corps has until the end of 2007 to complete its study….

Vrijling, for one, can't understand what the Corps is going to study for so long. The technology already exists and has been tested over decades in the Netherlands. He says Dutch and American engineers, working together, would need only "a couple of months" to draw up a detailed plan.

Was such a project included in President Obama's stimulus package? Apparently not. Nor is it in Obama's proposed 2010 budget. It seems that the stimulus package provided $4.6 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers civil works program as a whole, with Obama's 2010 budget proposing $5.1 billion for that program [PDF here].

The question is: will we ever see this correction on MSM, or is this the only source for this story? It matters not if all of us PA readers know this. Will the rest of the nation ever hear about it? My partner heard the speech and thought he made some good points. She thought he was telling the truth about this and the etrain to Disneyland and $300million for government cars.
Where are the Dems with counters to these lies? Sunday morning, anyone?

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john

Look, whatever the timing of when this did or did not happen, the larger point that Jindal was trying to make still stands: the Bush regime's unfathomable incompetence hampered the rescue operations, and it was finally up to a Democrat to actually do something and get the boats in the water.....

Or did Jindal have some other point I'm not understanding?

Jindal's story is an issue in itself, but to be fair about screwing up during Katrina: many levels of government goofed up. That wasn't just Bush's national efforts, but included Democratic controlled ones at the state/local levels.

delver

So ... given that he lied on national television about so important a historical event ... how are we supposed to trust him when he says he was born in Baton Rouge?

He says it, but how can he know? Do you remember your own birth? HE CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW, he was just a baby. And anyway he lies, he'd lie about that.

So let him produce an actual birth certificate with a raised seal with the name "Bobby Jindal" on it and the date of June 10, 1971. How come we've never seen this?

Probably because he's secretly a furriner.