Bobby Jindal - Are You Kidding Me?

America went on a blind date with Republican Governor and 2012 Presidential aspirant Bobby Jindal of Louisiana last night, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say we won't be calling him back. Oh, the GOP might. That ideological-purity-in-the-face-of-harsh-economic-reality delivered with an aw-shucks Gomer Pyle grin and goofy accent is just what the party of Palin is in the market for these days, so he may be their man.

If you missed it, consider yourself lucky. If you saw it, you were probably wondering like I was how President Obama could say "we do not torture" literally minutes before Jindal went on the air. I think Lynndie England was pointing at me while I was watching it. Just what was wrong with it? You can read it in its entirety here, but here are the highlights:

When they arrived in Baton Rouge, my mother was already 4-½-months pregnant. I was what folks in the insurance industry now call a "pre-existing condition."

If I were a Republican with no healthcare reform plan beyond defending the private insurance companies who deny folks with pre-existing conditions healthcare, I probably wouldn't have used those words.

Republicans are ready to work with the new president to provide those solutions.

Three of them in the Senate anyway.

So where we agree, Republicans must be the president's strongest partners. And where we disagree, Republicans have a responsibility to be candid and offer better ideas for a path forward.

Why yes, yes they do Governor. You guys are welcome to offer your ideas any day now. All I hear are "tax cuts" and "no".

Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us.

Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina -- we have our doubts.

Republicans bringing up the failed response to Hurricane Katrina is always good for Democrats. It saves us time and energy.

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office, I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: "Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!" I asked him: "Sheriff, what's got you so mad?" He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go, when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, "Sheriff, that's ridiculous." And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: "Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!" Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people.

Great little story, except that the timeline doesn't add up.

While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending.

This is about to get good...

It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government,

It may just be me, but buying cars from US automakers seems a lot more responsible than simply handing them money to stay afloat.

$8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland

Money is not allocated to any such project.

and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.

Beyond the sad fact that the Governor of Louisiana of all people is mocking money set aside for disaster preparedness, Jindal seems totally unaware that active volcanoes can be found up and down the Pacific coast of the US. In fact, the Seattle and Portland metropolitan areas and the nearly 6 million people that live there sit in the shadows of Mt. Ranier and Mt. Hood respectively.

After that, my eyes pretty much glazed over and I could bear no more. I only picked up one last gem from the Governor:

In my home state, there used to be saying: At any given time, half of Louisiana was said to be half under water, and the other half is under indictment.

Pointing out your state is a historically corrupt swamp is probably great for the tourism industry.

So that's it. That's the bright future of the Republican Party. Enjoy living under Democratic rule because I don't think its changing any time soon. Frankly, the Republicans are a Palin/Jindal 2012 ticket away from joining the Whig's in the history books.