The state of Bobby Jindal

[tahnan]

I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't already been said everywhere else, but nevertheless, a few thoughts:

• Barack Obama could probably read the D.C. phone book and I'd feel better about myself and my country. I'm glad he didn't, because there were some nice rhetorical flourishes in there—not just the part about how staying in school is an investment in America, but more particularly the times that he referred to the American public as "the people who sent us here". It's a nice reminder, to Congress but also to us, that these people are in Washington to represent us.
• Bobby Jindal. Wow. I'd never heard him speak before; I was mildly inclined to like him based on a profile a few years ago in the Brown Alumni Monthly. Halfway through his response, which I'm listening to now on c-span.org, I feel really condescended to. ("But Democratic leaders in Congress? They rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make decisions..." His tone makes it sound like he's explaining civics to a class of third graders.)
• "Wasteful spending". Like, oh, no, buying new cars for the government (heaven forbid we buy the product of a troubled major American industry!), and building a train "from Las Vegas to Disneyland" (yes, thank you for trivializing infrastructure), and "something called volcano monitoring" (got it, you don't know what it's for, and it sounds sciencey, so it must be something dumb, because why would we want to know when a volcano might erupt? Insert your own editorial cartoon here of Jindal wearing a toga and giving that speech in the forum of Pompeii). Won't they please just stop?
• Also, Rachel Maddow's reponse to Jindal invoking the reponse to Katrina is about right: "Um, ee-um, ahm, a, a ba ba ba ba ba".
• Maybe these responses always sound like this, but: Obama laid out policy goals and particular policies. Sure, Republicans might disagree with the policies, but Jindal isn't discussing the policies, he's going through this long spiel about how you should once again believe in the Republican Party, and how members of the Republican Party are willing to work for you, and we're restoring faith in the Republican^TM brand. For comparison: Obama mentioned the Democrats as a party exactly four times; three of them were in the phrase "Democrats and Republicans" and the fourth in the sentence "That is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue." That is to say, while there may have been a few nods to party divisions ("I know there are some in this chamber and watching at home who are skeptical of whether this plan will work..."), not once did he explicitly contrast the two parties; he never called on Republicans to do the right thing, or thanked the Democrats for their work in passing the stimulus bill, or anything else that would make "Believe in the Republicans" a sensible response.

Also, was this really more important than new episodes of Scrubs? Sheesh!

Comments

[saxikath]

I was listening to both speeches while I was working on a sewing project, so I didn't get the body language aspects of either one. But yes, Jindal sounded condescending, partisan, and unspecific. Whereas Obama makes me so glad to have a president I can listen to without feeling nauseous.

[selinker.livejournal.com]

I think this is a tremendous opportunity for the Republican Party to look in the mirror and be a better steward of the American people. Be a more fiscally responsible party, a more cautious party, and resist runaway spending and start making the world a better place. I think that's their opportunity. They know they screwed up big time. But I think the only thing they can ask from the American people is to judge them from this day forward. That's all they can ask for.

Oh, wait, that's Alex Rodriguez. My bad.

[jadelennox]

I did like that section about schools. No, I really love that section about schools. It wasn't just about the government, and it wasn't just about the rights of the people, it was about the responsibilities of the people. Kids, it's not acceptable for you to drop out of high school. Adults, you need to get a least one year of post-secondary education.

And yes, Jindal's "response" didn't respond to Obama's actual speech. Not that it really could, because of course it was written days ago, but still. He had passages in there "responding" to things Obama not only didn't say, but directly said the opposite of. And the volcano monitoring thing? I had pretty much exactly the same response. Couldn't he have come up with something that sounded dangerously sciencey that didn't also sound completely necessary?

I've heard a lot of commentary in the last month that Obama's active attempts to be nonpartisan, though they may be pissing off those of us on the left who wish he was sticking to his guns more, is giving him an enormous amount of popular support.

[selinker.livejournal.com]

Round these here parts, we consider volcano monitoring more important than police services. Seattle would very much like to know before Rainier goes nuclear. But fair enough, Gov. Jindal, we'll just remove the budget for disaster preparedness for hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. That should make you happy too.

However... I'm distressed that the Anaheim-Vegas rail system is back in the budget. That's a $12 billion maglev system for a route that Amtrak shut down due to lack of interest. To be clear, an L.A.-to-Vegas rail system is something I'm all behind, but that southeastern jog to Anaheim is crazy talk. There was a slower Desert Express proposal from north Los Angeles to Vegas that might've made sense, and would have been one-fourth the $12 billion price tag, but, oh yeah, no giant rodents.

Mike

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

The Anaheim-Vegas rail is, however, an exaggeration. There's not $12 billion budgeted for it, or even $8 billion as the claim goes. There's $8 billion budgeted for regional light rail, some of which could go to that project. (Harry Reid, D-NV, is apparently in favor of that, which is why some Republican politicians and performance artists leapt on it as if he had put in $8 billion for that very project.)

[selinker.livejournal.com]

It's mostly locally funded, I know. I just think it's a corporate boondoggle, and in these times, I don't want to pay for it. If Disney and MGM want to pony up the dough, great. But federal money still needs to be spent on good ideas.

[jangler-npl.livejournal.com]

I must admit to being puzzled by this. I thought that perhaps Slik was referring to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill which recently passed the House--http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/2009_Con_Bill_DivI.pdf. The list of specific rail projects with earmarked funds spans pages 58-63; however, and I may be just skipping over it, but I don't see anything from Anaheim to Las Vegas, or for that matter anything at all for anywhere in Nevada. I suppose Nevada reps could be so confident that the stimulus funds will indeed end up directed toward that project that they didn't feel the need to put it in the bill; or maybe it's become too much of a political hot potato to even bother trying to put it in. I'll be watching recovery.gov for further developments. That is, unless I get distracted by butterflies or something else more pleasant than politics.