Bobby Jindal’s relative youth may give him a second chance later in life to mount the national stage; but at 37, the Louisiana governor is letting his ambition get in the way of acquiring the wisdom it will take to truly change the Republican Party.
Tonight, at about 30 seconds into a feature on Jindal on 60 Minutes, he said, “I think the Republican Party needs to stop thinking about who’s the next messenger, is they need to stop thinking about how do they fix their party. We need to start thinking about how do we help fix our country?”
I would call that wise. That’s Jindal, unscripted, answering a question.
Then there’s the Jindal being handled – by God knows whom – who gave the Republican response the other night. There’s also the Jindal who says he won’t take any of the federal government’s stimulus money for his state – Louisiana a state that needs it more than most. (I think his fingers are crossed behind his back … he knows damn well his state legislature won’t let someone ‘move their cheese.’)
The years of our Lord 2008 and 2009 have taught us one thing, government does have a role in a civilized society and eight years of uninterrupted straw men and red herrings used to tear down government made us all majority shareholders in AIG. In his speech on Tuesday, Jindal built another straw man with an improbable story of the feds trying to keep a bayou sheriff from rescuing people because his boat wasn’t registered. He called federal funding for volcano monitoring useless pork. I wonder what he would say to some jerk-off in the Midwest who attacked funding for the National Hurrican Center?
There was a lot of good said about Jindal and what he’s doing to change the culture of corruption in Louisiana tonight on the “60.” Maybe Bobby ought to finish his job there in Louisiana and leave the really big problems to the folks with fresh ideas – because his national political skilz scream “just another Republican drone.”
