Gracious! The Jindal criticism just... won't... stop. These things have a way of snowballing, and so far that's what's happening. I'm fascinated.
Tbogg:Bobby Jindal's presidential aspirations blew up tonight like a cheap condom on the end of a fire hose.
...
Townhall's Amanda Carpenter has always struck me a young lady of simple All-American tastes, who would be dazzled by a fistful of carnations and the early bird special at Applebees. Tonight:
Well, I don't feel as good about the Jindal response as I did earlier today.
There was a cheesy, salesman-like quality to the response that I don't think connected with the Rick Santelli-inspired anger so many Republicans are feeling right now. And, I'm pretty sure he's going to be SNL's next target. His speech tempo was just, so weird.
Enough complaning from me. He didn't pass the primetime test and it makes me sad. I don't want to dwell.
The Next Right:
I have seen it referred to multiple times as "Kenneth the Page" from 30 Rock. Personally I felt more like he was tucking in a child.
...
I don't know if Jindal intentionally talked to me like I was in pre-school or not, but I do know it irritated more than just me, and turned me off to anything he was saying. And I'm a Republican. It Sounded Like A Campaign Commercial For Him
It sure was nice to hear the life story of Bobby Jindal - but it was hardly effective as a response to the president.
Barack Obama called for investment in education, transportation and infrastructure. He called upon Congress to cut the deficit in half in four years, and reform healthcare.
Bobby Jindal told me his mom got pregnant, then moved to America, and gave birth to him, setting in motion a great American story.
His story really is fascinating, but I think I'd like to wait until 2010 at last before I start getting this stuff beaten in my head. What was called for tonight was an alternative to the president's agenda, not a personal appeal to Jindal-cult.
538 (liveblogging):
I hear Facebook is lighting up with "Kenneth the Page" to the point that this may go down as the Kenneth the Page Speech. This guy is the anointed Republican rising star, by the way. Obama's gotta be laughing about this.
Ross Baker, Political scientist, Rutgers:
Bobby Jindal is in dire need of a gravitas transplant.
NRO's
Jim Geraghty:He seemed to have somehow figured out a way to speak too quickly and too slow at the same time. (A couple readers, who wanted to rave about him, agreed, using terms like "robotic" and "Mr. Rogers.")
Larry J. Sabato, Professor of Politics, University of Virginia:
On Bobby Jindal: The most damning comment I’ve heard came from a friend who is not hostile to Jindal’s ambitions. “He looked like a fake Rolex after you’ve just seen the real thing.”
John Cole:Watch Jindal goofily lope in his weird gait out to the microphone with that weird smile on his face- all of which happened after Obama’s command performance in the regal chamber in front of hundreds of clapping people. “Oh, God” is right. And then he started to talk. My snap reaction: Is Jindal addressing the nation or auditioning for the job as Mr. Rogers replacement? WTF is up with this sing-songy delivery? He sounds like he is addressing gradeschool kids. Then again, maybe the Republican voters tuned in for him, so maybe he just knows his target audience.
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From the comments:
His entrance was horrific. Stepping out of the shadows, he looks like the psycho killer who’s trying to act normal after just having finished sinking a car with a dead body in the trunk in the swamp behind his house. Did M. Night Shyamalan direct that entrance? Because I see dead people.
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Tigerhawk thinks Chris Matthews deliberately (and repeatedly) used the word "outsource" during his criticism of Jindal's speech. Tigerhawk is right. It
was intentional, and it was a slimy cheap shot. So between that nastiness and Matthews' audible "Oh Gawd" muttering, you'd think that conservatives would have enough red meat to divert attention to
Chris Matthews, and try to make
him the story. It's not working, though.
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The Governor's office is doing its best to
spin away the damage with a collection of quotes titled "What They Are Saying: Governor Jindal’s Republican Address To The Nation". Among them is
Michael Gerson's ill-timed piece that has
nothing to do with Jindal's address.
Update: Rush Limbaugh, who is a big fan of Jindal's (and
vice-versa, apparently), disagrees with the uniformly positive "reactions" posted on the Governor's office
web page. On his radio show today Limbaugh said:
“Everybody trashed Bobby Jindal... I never heard the media, both sides, conservative and liberal, dump on a response like they did last night.”Pains me to say it, but Rush is right. I've never seen both sides dump on a response like they are doing now, either. That's why I'm so fascinated and surprised.
Labels: Jindal, tv
32 Comments:
Rush Limbaugh is having none of it--his love is unbroken.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/25/rush-mentors-jindal/
I don't think it's totally crazy to see this as intentionally positioning PBJ to be the "man of substance" over the Obama "man of form."
Sure, it seems silly now, but when Obama hasn't un-cratered the economy after four years, it won't.
Hell, Mr. Bivalve, you're the one who puts him as the ultimate cunning politician..doing (and believing) what it takes to get that next job. I'd argue he's looking at 2009's egg-on-the-face-Kenneth-the-Page as 2012's look-at-me-now-special-Maury-Povich-episode.
I like the far-out speculation, Duff, but I feel pretty sure that this was not in THE PLAN, as it were.
There's plenty of time to recover from it. Bill Clinton recovered from his '88 keynote speech. But there's a real danger that this fiasco will become a reference point for the "Media Script" on Jindal, and that will be much harder to recover from.
The possibility that this was some sort of queen sacrifice/double bankshot move that would pay off in two or three years is an interesting thing to contemplate, but if they were so brilliant to attempt a move like that then you'd have to "credit" them with an intentional loss to Blanco in 2003, and all kinds of other stuff.
Jindal and Teepell just aren't that smart. (I don't know if anyone is.) It's easy to look like a star when you're a conservative media darling in a conservative Southern state. But this is a new stage, a new test. Similarly, many investors think they're geniuses during a bull market; but when it turns, that's when you can separate the men from the boys.
As you imply, this humbling experience may eventually become a "good thing" for Jindal. Perhaps he'll learn and grow as a politician. (He'll need to, if he wants to actually compete for POTUS in 2012.) But the idea that this was "intended" doesn't wash. It's not remotely plausible, in my view, but that doesn't mean it's not an interesting thing to contemplate.
As a general rule, the double bankshot/queen sacrifice strategic political fanciness that you see all the time in Louisiana politics doesn't work so well nationally. There's too many variables and too many things that can't be controlled. On a state level, you can do some weird stuff and still get away with it, or make it work-- but people aspiring for national office don't do that sort of thing. If someone in the Jindal War room suggested "Hey, let's tank this once in a lifetime opportunity, because two years from now, after Obama has spent us into oblivion to no avail, Bobby will look like a wholesome melanin-rich Paul Tsongas emerging, savior-like, from da bayou"... they'd be fired.
The other thing about Jindal's speech is... "the substance" of it was awful. Maybe even worse than the delivery.
More on that later.
he may be a fool but he's our fool. yay.
Jindal has always sold himself as a righteous technocrat..perhaps he's not as polished as Obama, but he's just as smrt. PBJ has been a over-driven prick since his days at DHH, and is ALWAYS thinking about the next better job.
While I can see that it might not have been meant to tank so badly, I don't think the pitch wasn't deliberate, just like "refusing" stimulus money. Is he doing that for the good of the state? Really?
And since when have the actual merits of a Neo-neo-con's speech been an issue? Besides, most of the zeitgeist has been the delivery, not the message, which most agree was more ridiculous. Palin got nailed on both. I think this is more post-Obama piling-on the GOP...long term, he's just as viable, IMO.
I guess we'll just have to differ, but I just think there's more intelligent design in there than he's being given credit for.
Again, I love your points, Duff!
The Next Right is the only person (other than me) that I've seen even allude to something that would have ticked me off if I were Republican -- he acted like it was his chance to launch his 2012 presidential campaign on the GOP's dime. Of course they're not going to come out and say that he should have been more negative, but that's what they're thinking. They (right wingers) wanted more b.s. about trains and volcanoes. Of course, it didn't help Jindal that his speech sucked.
That said, Matthews, some other national media types and some liberal bloggers have been making some attacks on Jindal that I think every Louisianian should defend him from, liberals maybe even more than conservatives.
Oyster: I too am fascinated, surprised, and I am also happy but that happiness is bittersweet. While I am very happy that the national media is actually paying attention to who Jindal really is, it does concern me that all this criticism of Jindal might keep alive the criticisms of Louisiana that do not help us in the least bit. But at the end of the day it is Jindal, and those who blindly supported him (especially those in the Louisiana Media), who are to blame for this.
I do LOVE Sabato's comment... "He looked like a fake Rolex after you've just seen the real thing."... CLASSIC.
David: What attacks are Matthews and others making that we should defend Jindal from?
'Kenneth the Page' is going to hurt, not that I've ever watched 30 Rock or even knew who Kenneth the Page was until...today.
Can You Tube be considered an educational resource? Well...it caught me up, at least a bit, on Kenneth. Ouch.
Ridicule is a very difficult hurdle for a politician to overcome and a powerful weapon with which to attack.
It wasn't his finest hour, was it?
Watching little Bobbi was like watching that creepy old dude in the bar who keeps hitting on the 20yo hott until she can't take it anymore and has him thrown out.
Nobody's buying the week-old seafood that the GOP is trying to sell from the back of their truck on the side street while people walk back to their cars after the parade.
This pair of speeches put a gigantic grin on my face.
Dude, refusing the $98 million is something that we will be thankful for, oyster.
Louisiana's Unemployment Trust Fund sits at a very attractive level, even though we're "taxing" (euphemistically, not literally) that system via UI benefits more than we have in some time right now.
If we took that money, its non-recurring money. It'd be like a "promise to tax" instead of a "promise to pay" as a business might do for an A/R or A/P account.
It truly would result in higher business taxes and more cautious decisions regarding hiring & expansion on the part of all businesses in this state.
We were still able to increase our weekly benefit amounts at the start of this year, and will still be able to give folks who are Unemployed a $25 bump up come 2/28/09 and after, thanks to the stimulus.
Piyush's rejection of that money is a VERY GOOD decision, from a business development, Unemployment, political, and policy standpoint. There is no debate in that, whatsoever.
GO,
If you're that upset about the so-called "permanent" impact of extending unemployment benefits on Louisiana's remarkably low business taxes, then why not sunset the increase in benefits to coincide with the end of the "non-recurring money"?
It's not an ideal solution but it should at least satisfy the disingenuous argument PBJ is making about "unfunded mandates"
I tell you what, while I'm trying to take that away, you start up a petition to roll back homestead exemption from Louisiana Homeowners.
Let's see which one of us gets farther...or should I say let's see which one of us gets tarred & feathered first?
I'd like for you to elaborate on the use of "...so called 'permanent'..."
How in the world do we accept that money without changing the state law?
I'd agree that its less than ideal, and I think we shouldn't allow Congress to coerce us into doing anything, whether its changing our DUI laws or get Highway Funds with-held, or forcing us to start paying our own way after they "give us" some money for 36 months.
That's foolhardy fiscal policy for an outfit that's already-as I earlier stated-been good stewards of their trust fund, as well as been able to increase their benefits to the Unemployed as a result of it, all the while still being able to pass along the benefits of a bumped up weekly benefit amount as a result of the stimulus money we are accepting.
There is absolutely no result from the acceptance of that $98,000,000.00 than taking money away from either Healthcare or Higher Education, 36 months from now.
Or else you raise business taxes.
That you'd even debate this is laughable, and this isn't a left/right, D/R (Or in this case, D/RI), or Red/Blue thing...
You're in a recession. You don't PURPOSEFULLY FORECAST having to increase taxes on businesses 36 months down the road. That's ridiculous fiscal policy in this economic climate.
GO, you're making too much sense. They aren't interested in hearing that. All they are ever really interested in is seeing their side win and the other side lose, no matter what the consequences are. They are exactly like the folks on the other side whom they pretend to hate. The are one and the same.
"cheap condom"...."fire hose"?
wow...that there's a simile I have to remember.
How in the world do we accept that money without changing the state law?
You don't. You DO change the state law but write it in such a way that allows for the increase in UI benefits to expire when the federal money runs out thus relieving you of the onerous tax increase. OR change the law now and change the law again in 36 months. (There is no such thing as a "permanent change" to state law as the Governor continuously claims.)
Either way there is no mandate to increase taxes in the future. It's just an artful lie on Jindal's part.
No, what would be artful is for you to keep track of how many states successfully let those expanded UI benefits "expire" at the end of that sunset.
You & I both know the "artful" part was Obama's carrot & the stick offering of money that's not infinite to fund a program that needs infinte and continuous funding.
I'll say it again, this isn't a Red/Blue issue, its a matter of simple common sense. You aren't going to touch Unemployment Benefit amounts just as you aren't going to touch Homestead Exemption in this state. Blanco, nor Jindal, nor anyone else, for that matter, is going to touch something as sacred as those two cows.
There is no "artful" way to go about either of those two things without committing political suicide and getting the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition on your @sses for closeted, institutionally rife "racism" allegations.
You can act as if your rhetoric here is airtight, but go check the stats on the states that will be able to successfully complete such a rewrite of the Employment Security Laws while at the same time concurrently changing their business tax codes they have on the books.
It's simply not going to happen, and regardless of how "artfully" you try to frame your argument, its incongruent with logic and reason.
Especially with our Constitution and Constitutionally protected funding for certain agencies.
But, by all means, Mr. Polemicist, continue to try to call a horse chestnut a chestnut horse...You get the last word, here. I'll sacrifice style if you'll bring a little more substance to the table.
Once again, the conservative message is about how we CAN'T solve problems, rather than actual alternative methods.
Some of my conservative friends were less than enthusiastic about Jindal's speech. E.g. these two:
http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/6695
http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/6688
I've never seen both sides dump on a response like they are doing now, either.
I thought that happened with McCain's "Green Screen" speech...
...until now.
The way things are shaping up, it looks like, along with Tina Fey, I'll have to buy Jack McBrayer (the guy who plays "Kenneth the Page") an adult beverage of their choice, for saving America through comedy.
hee hee hee hee hee hee...
The first words out of Matthews mouth, Daniel Z.
tECHIDNA!!! You ARE alive! How ya been, man?
Oh, and I forgot a line for the above comment: :::chortling evilly with my tented talons, a'la Mister Burns, doing their truly wicked pas-de-deux as they twinkle and re-tent, rise, frollic, and re-tent, for the creepiest effect possible:::
Annti!! Been lurking on teh Internets...
And on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, we've now come full circle.
The other thing about Jindal's speech is... "the substance" of it was awful. Maybe even worse than the delivery.
You are right to put quotes around 'the substance'. Our National Kibbutzers don't care if the *actual*, underlying substance is horseshit; in fact, they are impressed if you can successfully sell complete crap (they call it 'tough' or 'smart'). What they don't like is if you aren't artful enough - if the complete crap you're selling too-obviously looks and smells like crap, which was the case in Jindal's speech. If you're going to be a lying asshole, you ought to be good at it. Pundits *love* that.
Speaking of complete crap...Obama's "Make Work Pay" plan for "working families" means $400 a year more in take home pay for single folks, and $800 for married couples...
Let's look at the "substance" of this plan, a cornerstone of what he's "sold" to the American public.
Single people will bring home an extra $33/month. Which breaks down to $8.25/week. Which breaks down to...$1.65/day...
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is this the change we can believe in? Let's hope not.
This amazing facet of our economic plan balloons out to $3.30/day for married couples.
I don't know about you all, but I sure do feel great knowing that ACORN gets a billion dollars in that stimulus package, along with $5.8 million for the "Ted Kennedy Center" (I wonder, will it have a "Mary Joe Kopeckney Memorial [Coffee] Bar"? Or perhaps they can set up a "Chappaquidick parking lot" out front?), and even $200K for tattoo removal in this "stimulus" package that Obama's said "contains no pork".
Any of you closet Republicans reading, don't start applauding just yet, because you bozos put in $400 million worth of pork according to your own Bidness Guru in Cavuto...
I guess I just have to sit here and laugh about someone talking about how crappy Bobby's "substance" was in light of what they've been sold and what they've been pimped out for to the tune of (In my best Dr. Evil Voice) Twooooo trilllllllion dollars in additional debt we now have to hope the grandkids can pay down for us...
Hilarity at its finest when the choir starts preaching to itself here at YRHT...
"I sure do feel great knowing that ACORN gets a billion dollars in that stimulus package"
Don't want to rain on your parade, but that's false.
"along with $5.8 million for the "Ted Kennedy Center" (I wonder, will it have a "Mary Joe Kopeckney Memorial [Coffee] Bar"? "
First I've heard of that, if it's true-- nice Mary Jo ref.
"Twooooo trilllllllion dollars in additional debt we now have to hope the grandkids can pay down for us..."
Well, the Bush years gave us 6 trillion plus interest in additional debt-- after inheriting a surplus, and during a period of (slow) economic growth. Deficit spending suddenly becomes all important to conservatives when there's a deep recession.
"Hilarity at its finest when the choir starts preaching to itself here at YRHT..."
I don't mind counterpoints. In fact, I encourage them. Just try to stay on topic more, and get your facts straight.
oyster...If you're going to talk about getting your facts straight, well...
Bush = 8 years = 6 Trillion
Obama = 60 days = 2 Trillion
You never saw me support Bush as far as his fiscal policy-outside of perhaps Capital Gains, which I think Obama's absolutely stupid about.
I'm going to e-mail you the YouTube, and he's reminiscent of Bobby Jindal when pressed on the subject by Charlie Gibson, I think it was.
You can spend money like an old man at a tiddy bar all you like, but don't lie to me...and he's lied about appointing lobbyists, about pork spending, and about actually giving working families a break. I notice you conspicuously didn't touch that "Making Work Pay" plan, which is complete and utter bullshit on his part, and an abject failure in terms of giving the "Middle Class" a break of any sort.
The problem I have with lots of you is the same that you "allegedly" have with me for supporting conservative candidates more often than not:
You don't care about your guy's lies. You only care about the other guy's lies.
The stimulus bill is essentially the same spending they would've done had Kerry been in office. Stop effing fiddling while Rome Burns and TELL US HOW YOU PLAN TO PULL US OUT OF THE JETWASH, MAVERICK?
What-exactly-do you find so stimulating about the stimulus bill? That it bails out states who were already facing a cash shortage? That it funds a few construction projects across the country? Hell, in Louisiana, the rural legislators want it spread around to all 64 parishes, ensuring jack SHIT will be accomplished in a substantive manner for things other than I-49 and the Baton Rouge area.
Hell, Obama-for all his talk, pomp & circumstance about New Orleans-left the Port HIGH & DRY down there in his stimulus bill. While I guess Bobby's the only one pumping money into port projects to help get business back from the Millenium Port out off the Coast of Texas.
I just think its the ultimate irony to watch you guys look past the same sh!t you fixate on in the opposing party...
It's why I think political parties are the very definition of useless & obstructionist...
Look in my archives, Go, and see if you can find a harsher critic of Dems like Derrick Shepherd and Ray Nagin. I endorsed Republican Cao for office, and have certainly not looked the other way regarding the faults of, say, Blanco, or past Dem presidents like Kennedy or Johnson.
As far as political blogs go, GO, it's like this is the first time you've read one. You tell us our partisan blindness is "the ultimate irony", but (even if I grant your characterization) is it any better or worse on the other side. Here's some homework: if you can present me with a handful of (similarly partisan) conservative blogs that are more even-handed, I'd love to know of them.
Give me some examples of political blogs YRHT should model itself after, in terms of even-handedness.
Check... Check... Checkmate!
The argument about "what the money is being spent on" is another example of the classic "shift the topic of argument" tactic the Republican talk show and blogosphere crowd have perfected. If you accept Keynesian theory at all, then it doesn't matter what in the hell the government spends the money on--it's the act of injecting the cash into the economy at all that's critical (once the fiscal policy quiver is empty...as in essentially zero percent interest rates). Bury it and pay men to dig it up, and such. If you don't accept Keynesian theory and are a "supply sider"...well, then after the past quarter century or so, you probably don't think there ARE any answers. I'm not sure you even think there are questions....the bitching is not so much over the spending itself as it is over the fact that the spending is occuring when they're no longer in position to be the ones to direct it to their pet projects, and instead have to watch the "other team" do the funneling for a change.
