What is Bobby Jindal trying to hide?

Perhaps his own complete and utter ineptitude in the face of his state's most devastating environmental disaster?

For more than two months, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has made it clear that he considers the response of the federal government and BP to the gulf oil leak a failure on many fronts.
Gov. Bobby JindalReuters Gov. Bobby Jindal

But elected officials in Louisiana and members of the public seeking details on how Mr. Jindal and his administration fared in their own response to the disaster are out of luck: late last week the governor vetoed an amendment to a state bill that would have made public all records from his office related to the oil spill.

[snip]

For more than two months, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has made it clear that he considers the response of the federal government and BP to the gulf oil leak a failure on many fronts.
Gov. Bobby JindalReuters Gov. Bobby Jindal

But elected officials in Louisiana and members of the public seeking details on how Mr. Jindal and his administration fared in their own response to the disaster are out of luck: late last week the governor vetoed an amendment to a state bill that would have made public all records from his office related to the oil spill.

Bobby Jindal is a fucking liar

When even the mainstream media aren't buying your bullshit anymore, you know you've jumped the shark:

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It's American Idiot week!

Yes, folks, the musical of our age, American Idiot opens Tuesday night.

There's talk of a movie, which will undoubtedly then be turned back into another musical, which means not only that Green Day has become Mel Brooks, but also that a trio of guys who used to do 3-chord punk about getting high and jerking off have become the Most Important Band in America.

So in celebration of this much-anticipated event (which Melina and I will have the fun of attending next Saturday, which means my anticipation is as much about not having to work two 15-hour days next weekend as about the show itself), here at B@B we're declaring this to be officially American Idiot week, so every day (time permitting), we'll point our fingers and laugh at a particularly fine specimen of American Idiot.

Our first Idiot, as Blue Girl reminds us, is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who just over a year ago, scoffed at the idea of volcano monitoring:

Still think volcano monitoring is something to be mocked, there, Bobby? Here's something around which your greedy little Republican mind can perhaps wrap itself.

Mr. Jindal, your pants are on fire

This guy is supposed to be a Rhodes Scholar. Why does he feel he has to make shit up? Or is that just part of the conservative DNA these days?

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.

There's a larger point here, though. The central anecdote of the GOP's prime-time response to President Obama's speech, intended to illustrate the threat of excessive government regulation, turns out to have been made up.

So the Great Female Hope of the Republican Party makes shit up about saying "Thanks but no thanks" about the "bridge to nowhere", and now the Great Male Hope makes shit up about practically holding back the waters with his magical exorcising hands. Of course, if you look at who Republicans believe -- people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly, you realize that truth doesn't have a whole lot of resonance for these guys.

When your governor takes it, it's pork. When Bobby Jindal takes it, it's a necessary program

And when Bobby Jindal opens his mouth, hypocritical horseshit comes out:

The morning after listening to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's rebuttal speech, where he railed against a stimulus package "larded with wasteful spending," to the president's state of the nation address, I walked into the office and sent out a Tweet:

"Did anyone else think Gov. Bobby Jindal sounded like a cross between Mr. Rogers and a used car salesman in his rebuttal to Obama's speech?"

The more I learn about this new Republican savior, the more he sounds like a used car salesman.

It was no surprise when Jindal went off on the supposed earmarks in the stimulus package. Many have written about the lies that Jindal repeated about supposed stimulus pork, which ran the gamut all the way from miserly mice to voracious volcanoes. But it turns out he was being disingenuous and hypocritical at the same time.

In fiscal year 2008, his last hurrah as a U.S. congressman representing Louisiana before taking over the governor's mansion, Jindal scored big in the pork contest. He, sometimes in concert with other lawmakers, ended up bringing home $97,913,200 in bacon. That put him at the number 14 spot in Taxpayers for Common Sense's annual tally of the most successful appropriators in the House.

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told me that Jindal has every right to change his mind about earmarks now, but "facts are facts."

"He definitely did well... in the House," said Ellis. "Clearly he was not concerned about the earmark process, or not concerned enough to say 'no' at that point."

Ellis also pointed out that Jindal's place on the list is more significant than some others.

"There's only one other lawmaker that's ahead of him that wasn't on the appropriations committee," Ellis said.

That didn't seem to be weighing on Jindal during his prime-time speech.

Hypocrisy seems to be the name of the game among the so-called rising stars in the Republican Party. From Sarah Palin's family values/unwed pregnant teenager dichotomy and her own lies about the "bridge to nowhere" to Bobby Jindal's love of earmarks for his own state, these prospective 2012 candidates are only arguably good at talking the talk, but they sure as hell don't walk the walk.

Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Special Post-Speech Edition

There's a post about "OK, Obama's great...but let's look down the road a piece, shall we?" kicking around in my head, but it has to wait till I don't have to leave the house by 6:15 AM for a 7 AM meeting. But some of our fellow bloggren have come up with enlightening and sometimes entertaining responses to Barack Obama's speech last night. So let's give 'em some linkitude:

Sherry at A Feather Adrift seems to have had the same thought I did: that if this guy is really this good and he can do even half of this, he could be literally the Best. President. Ever. She has some nice snark about Mr. Jindal's Neighborhood, too.

Animal Rollins D. Menace notes some plagiarism of Sarah Silverman in Bobby Jindal's rebuttal.'

What Sammy Said, or Great Minds Think Alike.

SteveAudio weighs in in the Epic Louisiana Fail of 2009 and how it rendered Rachel Maddow speechless. (This is almost too easy. And it oughta be illegal to provide this much snarkitude.)

Blue Girl has a future writing captions for Countdown. This one is great.

Why We Lurve Paul Krugman.

D-day debunks B-Jay's ridiculing of volcano monitoring. (I think Olbermann read D-day while prepping for tonight's show.)

Mithras can't decide which of the Republican identity politics wingnut lunatics would be more fun in 2012.

You'd better make sure to wrap your cranium with duct tape before reading what Terrance found. We're talking cranium-combusiting Stoopiditudeness.

John Amato makes the case that Bobby Jindal's speech was ugliness and race-baiting disguised as comic ineptitude.

Driftglass and the title "Shorter Bobby Jindal". Perfect together. (And nobody does it better....except maybe Ornery Bastard.)