As you all know, the Daily Kingfish has been blogging about Governor Jindal for over a year now, and Oyster, Jeffrey, Suspect Device, and CenLamar have been doing it far longer than DKF, and, yet it always amazed me that the local Louisiana press always gave their "Bobby" a free ride.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is on a path to finish the job Hurricane Katrina started, destroying the public infrastructure that served, however imperfectly, poor and working-class New Orleans residents.
Jindal, the wunderkind who is being touted as conservatism's rising new star and an at-least-half-serious contender for being John McCain's running mate, has openly embraced some of the most extreme components of the right's agenda, from tax cuts for the wealthy to public funding of private and religious schools. The New Orleans area can least afford to be the staging ground for a bankrupt conservative ideology, but Jindal is zealously leading the state into the void nonetheless, even to the point of criticizing President Bush for not being right-wing enough.
The impact of the ideological decisions coming out of the governor's office for many of the people of New Orleans, as they approach the third anniversary of the hurricane that devastated their city, is that to the extent that the city is being rebuilt, it is not being rebuilt for them. "We're getting the message that he is not open to us," Beth Butler, lead Louisiana organizer for ACORN, told me in an interview this week.
Seriously, click on the FireDogLake link just for the photo of Jindal they've got up there! And the other national news site ... Talking Points Memo:
Bobby Jindal, the 36-year old governor of Louisiana, is being taken seriously by the national press as a candidate on the shortlist to be John McCain's Vice President. No one doubts that he's a political prodigy -- his impressive resume includes stints as president of the state university system, a Congressman and now governor.
But one of Jindal's job titles hasn't gotten much attention -- and it just might prompt a few questions if his Veep candidacy gains steam: Exorcist.
