Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night -- about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims?

Turns out it wasn't actually, you know, true.

In the last few days, first Daily Kos, and then TPMmuckraker, raised serious questions about the story, based in part on the fact that no news reports we could find place Jindal in the affected area at the specific time at issue.

Jindal had described being in the office of Sheriff Harry Lee "during Katrina," and hearing him yelling into the phone at a government bureaucrat who was refusing to let him send volunteer boats out to rescue stranded storm victims, because they didn't have the necessary permits. Jindal said he told Lee, "that's ridiculous," prompting Lee to tell the bureaucrat that the rescue effort would go ahead and he or she could arrest both Lee and Jindal.



But now, a Jindal spokeswoman has admitted to Politico that in reality, Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone "days later." The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.
This is no minor difference. Jindal's presence in Lee's office during the crisis itself was a key element of the story's intended appeal, putting him at the center of the action during the maelstrom. Just as important, Jindal implied that his support for the sheriff helped ensure the rescue went ahead. But it turns out Jindal wasn't there at the key moment, and played no role in making the rescue happen.

sebster wrote:
So yeah, what Jindal did was pretty crappy and he needs to be chastised for that. But that's all it is, much like the Hillary sniper fib. Compared to the actual content of Jindal's speach... idiotic, tired old rhetoric about bad old government and the wonders of the free market... yeah, compared to that exagerating a story seems a pretty minor thing.

Kilkrazy wrote:This sort of stuff happens all the time.

Reagan used to talk about his war experiences -- point being he didn't have any, he was remembering movies he was in at the time.

malfred wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:This sort of stuff happens all the time.

Reagan used to talk about his war experiences -- point being he didn't have any, he was remembering movies he was in at the time.

There's lying and then there's crazy.

sexiest_hero wrote:1. Galvatron for overlord.

2.You guys don't think stealing a dead man's tale is about as low as you can get?

Iorek wrote:Ha! Galvatron is certainly change that you can believe in. From gun to robot, that is.

gorgon wrote:Jindal's not the first guy to blow his "look, I'm a national candidate" moment. Clinton had that awful 2-hour speech at the Dem National Convention in 1988, and people seemed to forget about it. Jindal will be fine.

Frazzled wrote:When the bill comes due for this massive government we'll see who's in power.

The market dropped in February at a similar rate to that during the Depression. Thats not a sterling endorsement of new policies. Everytime Obama's people talks the market drops 2%.

gorgon wrote:I'm first to say that the GOP needs to refocus on fiscal conservatism if they want to win in states like mine.

However, they're in a difficult spot. It's hard to argue for fiscal conservatism at a time when government spending is so obviously needed to bail out people and institutions.

A Moderate Manifesto
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LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMy SpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkBy DAVID BROOKS
Published: March 2, 2009

You wouldn’t know it some days, but there are moderates in this country — moderate conservatives, moderate liberals, just plain moderates. We sympathize with a lot of the things that President Obama is trying to do. We like his investments in education and energy innovation. We support health care reform that expands coverage while reducing costs.

But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.

So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new.

The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment. Yet the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward.

The U.S. has always been a decentralized nation, skeptical of top-down planning. Yet, the current administration concentrates enormous power in Washington, while plan after plan emanates from a small group of understaffed experts.

The U.S. has always had vibrant neighborhood associations. But in its very first budget, the Obama administration raises the cost of charitable giving. It punishes civic activism and expands state intervention.

The U.S. has traditionally had a relatively limited central government. But federal spending as a share of G.D.P. is zooming from its modern norm of 20 percent to an unacknowledged level somewhere far beyond.

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative, in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice. As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget “contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.”

Moderates now find themselves betwixt and between. On the left, there is a president who appears to be, as Crook says, “a conviction politician, a bold progressive liberal.” On the right, there are the Rush Limbaugh brigades. The only thing more scary than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it.

Those of us in the moderate tradition — the Hamiltonian tradition that believes in limited but energetic government — thus find ourselves facing a void. We moderates are going to have to assert ourselves. We’re going to have to take a centrist tendency that has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid and turn it into an influential force.

The first task will be to block the excesses of unchecked liberalism. In the past weeks, Democrats have legislated provisions to dilute welfare reform, restrict the inflow of skilled immigrants and gut a voucher program designed for poor students. It will be up to moderates to raise the alarms against these ideological outrages.

But beyond that, moderates will have to sketch out an alternative vision. This is a vision of a nation in which we’re all in it together — in which burdens are shared broadly, rather than simply inflicted upon a small minority. This is a vision of a nation that does not try to build prosperity on a foundation of debt. This is a vision that puts competitiveness and growth first, not redistribution first.

Moderates are going to have to try to tamp down the polarizing warfare that is sure to flow from Obama’s über-partisan budget. They will have to face fiscal realities honestly and not base revenue projections on rosy scenarios of a shallow recession and robust growth next year.

They will have to take the economic crisis seriously and not use it as a cue to focus on every other problem under the sun. They’re going to have to offer an agenda that inspires confidence by its steadiness rather than shaking confidence with its hyperactivity.

If they can do that, maybe they can lure this White House back to its best self — and someday offer respite from the endless war of the extremes.

sexiest_hero wrote:Why didn't anybody bother to check a simple story out before thrusting this guy on stage to make an ass out of himself.

Platuan4th wrote:

sexiest_hero wrote:Why didn't anybody bother to check a simple story out before thrusting this guy on stage to make an ass out of himself.

Why didn't they ask anyone from Louisiana about Jindal before thrusting him on stage?

Honestly, during Katrina, Jindal should have been in DC where he belonged to try to get help that way. The only reason he went to New Orleans after the hurricane was to try to garner support for when he would run for governor.