In the first of several political rants that this next year will inspire, I hereby grant Bobby Jindal the highest honor that I bestow upon politicians — provisional entry onto the “Roll of Folks Who Might Not Be Sleezeballs.” While listing on the Roll only requires a fairly low level of decency, the total length of the Roll remains quite short indeed. Bobby becomes the first entry this season.
Bobby is the new Governor-elect of Louisiana, having won 52% of the popular vote in a 12 person race. He’s running on the reform platform, and hopefully he’ll ensure that the next governor-elect doesn’t win on the same platform.
Mr. Jindal is a fresh face to politics, and has been biding his time in the U.S. Congress until he could take another swing at his real goal. This is reminiscent of other new faces in politics these days, with the only difference being that Bobby has succeeded where others will fail miserably and be beaten by a girl.
The primary result of his two gubernatorial campaigns (other than allowing me to use the word ‘gubernatorial’) has been to establish than Indian-colored Americans are not protected under the Liberal Convention on Politically-Correct Attitudes, as his ‘progressive’ challengers routinely tried to stir up racist sentiments against him in a feeble attempt to hide their impotence on actual issues.
There are many quick summaries of Bobby’s recent past (some of them more artfully composed than others) and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about his tenure in office. His entry onto the Roll is provisional, and it will be revoked and disavowed if he turns out to be a normal politician. If he does succeed in draining the corruption from Louisiana — the very stuff that keeps that state above sea level — he will have to make the choice between staying in Baton Rouge or listening to the crowd pushing for him to return to Washington. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who took note that he’s a non-naturalized citizen, and therefore eligible for the Big Time.
The 12 Angry Men Blog 
October 30, 2007 at 9:36 am
Unfortunately, while he may be against corruption he also appears to hate freedom as much as Hilary and Giuliani. He is on record supporting a ban on flag burning, and supporting the Real ID act.
October 30, 2007 at 10:52 am
When a politician supports measures that fail as completely as those two did, you have to wonder if their support is what it appears. He might not actually -want- those measures to pass at all. If he doesn’t, and if it’s a given that the measure will fail, he can support it all he wants without any danger of it being enacted. That means he gets to look extra patriotic and right-leaning without actually doing any damage. It’s almost as though he were just using those votes as resume-padding for some other upcoming election…
So he ends up as the governor of Louisiana, and you, AM, are still allowed to burn the flag of Soviet Wisconsin while protesting having to show any form of ID when voting for the Supreme Soviet.
Where’s the harm in that?
October 30, 2007 at 11:44 am
When a politician supports measures that fail as completely as those two did, you have to wonder if their support is what it appears. He might not actually -want- those measures to pass at all.
So you are accusing him of corrupt practices?
As for Soviets, the Soviets loved national ID systems. The Nazis invented the modern form, the Soviets perfected it, and the North Koreans inherited it.
Only someone who hates America would vote for that, or to ban flag burning.
I support flag burning as vehemently as I support my right to tell people who are burning the flag that they are complete douche bags.
October 30, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Well, I’ve said before that the Left hates brown people…
But I do have to take exception to both the NRO article you linked to and your use of quotes around progressive. There’s nothing unusual about progressives being racist. In fact, it’s something of a hallmark (see especially this discussion of famous Progressive Woodrow Wilson).
That’s not to say that only Progessives are racist. Only that racism, sadly, can be found across the political spectrum because demonizing the other is all too easy and common.
When one of your primary ideological planks is tolerance, however, your racism is particularly deserving of ridicule.
October 30, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Racism is not progressive. People claiming to be progressives who are racist don’t make racism progressive, they just prove themselves to be hypocrites.
November 1, 2007 at 8:19 am
Red State was artfully composed?
November 1, 2007 at 10:40 am
In the sense that they took artistic license with their descriptions — glossing over details to make the situations appear very black & white, new and productive vs. old and corrupt where the realities are always a lot more muddled.
November 1, 2007 at 11:53 am
Well, personally I prefer to be more blunt.
November 1, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I found that my typical bluntness tended to scare folks in my new surroundings, since they were too used to people saying things without meaning them, and never saying anything unpleasant. I guess I’ve started slipping out of the habit.
I’m just curious to see what Jindal does with his term in office. If he can make a dent in the Louisiana bureaucracy, maybe he can scare some other governors into taking notice and responding to their constituencies again.
November 4, 2007 at 7:48 pm
i love bobby jidal and what he has done for louisiana so go BOBBY JINDAL!!!!!
November 5, 2007 at 10:34 am
AI wrote:
###I’m just curious to see what Jindal does with his term in office. If he can make a dent in the Louisiana bureaucracy, maybe he can scare some other governors into taking notice and responding to their constituencies again.###
Yeah, it’ll be interesting. Pols have to be careful about how they spend their political capital and the real test isn’t winning the election but actually doing something. Louisiana bureaucrats and ward-heelers know a thing or two about surviving and, indeed, turning their opponents into friends…. Indeed, pols in other states (hello, Illinois?) are far from immune from being turned.
IMO a lot of what’s going on is the early stages of a generational changing of the guard from boomers to Gen X’ers (or whatever you want to call them), who often don’t have the same stake in battles of the past. While Jindal seems to have an IMO unhealthy interest in culture war kinds of stuff (YMMV), the fact that he’s not been fighting the battles of the sixties for his entire adult life may help.
Nonetheless, his election *does* illustrate something important: The country’s come a long way when Louisiana is electing someone of Asian Indian descent to high office and is currently pondering seriously electing a woman and an African-American (albeit one of highly non-traditional decent) to even higher office. Regardless of what you think about said pols—like ’em, hate ’em, skeptical, whatever—this is a pretty big change from a generation ago.
I do, however, wonder if Jindal would have won had he been a practicing Hindu who still espoused the same positions?
Love Jindal Says:
###i love bobby jidal and what he has done for louisiana###
What exactly has he *done*? Serving a term or two in Congress is one thing, being the governor is another. The proof of the pudding is in the eating….