Mr. Jindal, if there is any justice in this world...

[acroyear]

Your political career would be over on your next election.

TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Jindal Admits Katrina Story Was False:

Looks like the game is up.

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.

Maybe it's time to rethink the premise.

First he chews out expenditures on natural disaster research (volcanoes) even though his state has been the hardest hit by any natural disaster since the '89 earthquake or the midwest river floods of the mid 90s, and now we find that the very disaster he should have kept in mind is something he lied about his involvement in the reaction to.

Time to go.  And while you're at it, fire the guy who put this lying idiot in front of the camera last week in the first place.

Comments

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

Bobby Jindal is about to be on 60 Minutes. Wonder what he'll say there?

[petricat666.livejournal.com]

I was reading an editorial. Apparently the GOP didn't trust Jindal to be himself and the speech was written for him to make him seem more like a regular guy. It wouldn't surprise me if he throws off the handlers especially after the news about the Katrina story and the mocking of volcano monitoring.

[uncle-possum.livejournal.com]

And, Rush Limbaugh lied, of course, about the inability to search a PDF file of the stimulus bill--to make the point that the gov't was hiding its plots from the people. And the ongoing claims about Obama not being a US citizen, and being a Muslim.

There was a time when being a "conservative" did not mean being a liar.