Bobby, Get Your Gun ...

Anything you can do,
I can do better.
I can do anything
Better than you.

If this keeps up, Leonard Pinth Garnell is going to need that Universal Healthcare package, to deal with his exhaustion.

Two big duds in the same week.

And, I don't believe Tweety mumbling a plaintive "Oh God" as Bobby Jindal came to the podium, was the only one to do so ... There had to be, throughout Jindals' GOP Talking Points rehash, titled "Americans Can Do Anything", thousands of others.

Numerous folks are comparing Bobby Jindal's rebuttal to Obama last evening with Kenneth, from "30 Rock".

Fine, however, for me, it played out much more like an old SNL skit, a "Bad Politics" delivered dead-center in the strike zone for Garnell to seeth as a "delicious disaster".

Boy, if the message we are supposed to believe from it, that the Republican's "Can Do" spirit is better than the Democrat's "Can Do" spirit, man are the Republicans so tone deaf, and so, so fucking lost.



I mean, when your offical rebuttal to Obama's Not-A-State-of-the-Union-State-of-the-Union Address is Hurricane Katrina, and a racist sheriff .... 

Let me tell you a story. 

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, 'Sheriff, that's ridiculous.' And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!' Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

From Joan Walsh;

But Jindal is making no sense: He's lying about Obama's plans (there will be no government-run health care) and his Katrina stories are the perfect symbolism for the current GOP: They'll rescue wealthy bankers from oblivion, but leave low-income black people on roofs. Also, Politico caught it first, to my knowledge: The sheriff Jindal lionized in his speech, Harry Lee, is most famous for gruesome racial profiling during his tenure as Jefferson County's top cop. His Wikipedia page has all the details.

Jindal, among other distortions, dissed the monitoring of volcanos;

While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.

Well, he might have well mocked the rebuilding of the levees in New Orleans.

Nate Silver has the 411 on this, in his "Jindal Versus the Volcano";

Before the cataclysmic eruption, roughly one million people lived in the region around Mount Pinatubo, including about 30,000 American military personnel and their dependents at the two largest U.S. military bases in the Philippines--Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station. The slopes of the volcano and the adjacent hills and valleys were home to thousands of villagers. Despite the great number of people at risk, there were few casualties in the June 15 eruption. This was the result of intensive monitoring of Mount Pinatubo by scientists with the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) and the USGS.

The first recognized signs that Pinatubo was reawakening after a 500-year slumber were a series of small steam-blast explosions in early April 1991. Scientists from PHIVOLCS immediately began on-site monitoring and soon declared a 6-mile-radius danger zone around the volcano. They were joined in a few weeks by USGS scientists from the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, a cooperative effort with the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The USGS and PHIVOLCS estimate that their forecasts saved at least 5,000 lives and perhaps as many as 20,000. The people living in the lowlands around Mount Pinatubo were alerted to the impending eruption by the forecasts, and many fled to towns at safer distances from the volcano or took shelter in buildings with strong roofs. Additionally, more than 18,000 American servicemen and their dependents were evacuated from Clark Air Base prior to the June 15 eruption. In the eruption, thousands of weaker roofs, including some on Clark, collapsed under the weight of ash made wet by heavy rains, yet only about 250 lowland residents were killed. Of the 20,000 indigenous Aeta highlanders who lived on the slopes of Mount Pinatubo, all but about 120 were safely evacuated before the eruption completely devastated their villages.

No, wait a minute, it was, forget about the Democrats, and their Big Government, Big Spending Ways, you should just "Trust Us";

In recent years, these distinctions in philosophy became less clear -- because our party got away from its principles. You elected Republicans to champion limited government, fiscal discipline, and personal responsibility. Instead, Republicans went along with earmarks and big government spending in Washington. Republicans lost your trust -- and rightly so.

Tonight, on behalf of our leaders in Congress and my fellow Republican governors, I say: Our party is determined to regain your trust. We will do so by standing up for the principles that we share -- the principles you elected us to fight for -- the principles that built this into the greatest, most prosperous country on earth.

"... Went along with earmarks and big government spending in Washington ...?"

Hello? ... The Bush Grindhouse and their billions-of-dollars lies? ... Ted Stevens? ... The rubber-stamp Republican-controlled Congress for six-of-the-last-eight-years?

Yeah, we'll get back to you on that one, Bobby ... 



It would have been much better off, despite whatever the traditions may be, if the Republicans sat this one out last evening.

If Jindal is supposed to be one of the top tier, "the smart one" of the potential 2012 field, you saw how worried The Wasilla Whiz Kid is about him, using the day to dump the news of settling her Ethic Charges, and getting dunned about $7,000 in reimbursement payments and taxes.

Trying to compete with the Big Show, Obama in his groove spot of a giant spotlighted speech, was a lost cause.

They should have saved themselves, and sent out Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, for his continuing bitch session, which, undoubtedly, would have been equally, if not more, entertaining.

But no, the Republicans wanted to show us their future, a shitbag of failed policies, bankrupted ideology, completely empty of any new ideas, and no desire to even get into the game.

That's their mantra and their sticking to it.

My fellow citizens, never forget: We are Americans. And like my Dad said years ago, Americans can do anything.

Yeah, that song has already been sung.

Anything you can be
I can be greater.
Sooner or later,
I'm greater than you.

Bonus Jindal Riffs

There is an explosion, out on the World Wide Web, of great reactions to Jindal today, so we have posted them separately ... Jump on over to Jindal Jabberwocky to catch up on them.

And, since we weaved it into the narrative above, we might as well post it.

Annie Get Your Gun - Anything You Can Do

Jindal Jabberwocky

As we noted above, in our Bobby, Get Your Gun ..., there has been a fevered reaction to Bobby Jindal's rebuttal ("Americans Can Do Anything"), on President Obama's speech to the joint session of Congress last evening (The Not-A-State-of-the-Union Address).

So much so, that it wouldn't do justice to our typical "Bonus Links" that we often include.

Nosireebobby ... We have to hightlight some of the great riffs that are out there, with their own post.

First, the basics

Full text of Obama's speech to Congress and the nation

Full text of Gov. Bobby Jindal's Republican response



A Little Pre-Game Trash Talk

ABC News, in two posts, seemed to want to paint the President as a braggart;

Obama Claim: Done More in 30 Days Than Other Presidents

Official: Obama Accomplished More in 30 Days Than Any President in Modern History

And the Queen of the Flying Monkeys, Michelle "Stalkin" Malkin was having a hard time sitting still, waiting for the speech.

Obama - A+

Joan Walsh: "We are not quitters"

Libby Spencer: Scoring the speeches

Digby: The Speech

And, over on Brilliant at Breakfast, Jill sighed It would be a relief even if all he could do is speak coherently

And, now, some of the Jindal Jabberwocky!

Paging 30 Rock

Andrew Sullivan: Kenneth Jindal

Andy, at Towle Road: Obama Speaks to Congress, Jindal Does 30 Rock Impression

Greg Veis: Epic Fail, SOTU Rebuttal Version

Is there a more dangerous assignment for a rising party star to accept than a State of the Union rebuttal? Seriously, it’s hemlock. Tonight, in all fairness, would’ve been tough to pull off even if Bobby Jindal didn’t sound like Kenneth from “30 Rock,” or, in my favorite analogy of the evening, a third grader performing in his Thanksgiving play: Obama’s favorables are still roughly comparable to delicious, delicious beer’s; Republicans are widely perceived to be obstructionist naysayers; and, as Jon Cohn notes below, Americans are scared enough these days to prefer policy solutions to partisan sniping. But, holy crap, did Jindal blow it. I don’t even want to rehash the deadly obvious reasons why--just check out what the people who were supposed to like it are saying.

About That Volcano Stuff

Now, it was astoundingly strange, for the Governor of state that has a city that sits below sea level, and flooding can come, just from a normal summer thunderstorm, let alone a Category 5 hurricane, to go out and disparage the section of the Stimulus Package for Volcano Monitoring.

Andrea Thompson: Gov. Jindal Follow-up: What Is 'Volcano Monitoring'?

Davenoon - Bobby Jindal: Soft on Volcanoes

Matthew Yglesias: The Case for Volcano Monitoring

Nate Silver: Jindal Versus the Volcano


Hurricane Katrina Jindal's Good Luck Charm

Steve M: JINDAL LOVES THAT BOAT STORY

David Weigel: Bobby Jindal and the Stimulus as Hurricane Katrina


Oh, God

It was, primarily, the Right Wing Freak Show that has got their panties in a bunch, over Tweety letting out an "Oh, God" as Jindal strode out and walked down the short corridor to the podium, in the Governors Mansion.

Michael Calderone - MSNBC welcomes Jindal: 'Oh God'

Michael Goldfarb: Matthews Not Tingly for Jindal

Michelle "Stalkin" Malkin: Bobby Jindal and the expectations game; plus: which MSNBC host said “Oh, god?”

Chris, at TVNewser: "Oh God" Heard From MSNBC Set As Gov. Jindal Appears for GOP Response

Chris, at TVNewser: "Oh God" Book II: Chris Matthews Responds

I was taken aback by that peculiar stagecraft, the walking from somewhere in the back of this narrow hall, this winding staircase looming there, the odd anti-bellum look of the scene. Was this some mimicking of a president walking along the state floor to the East Room?

They Don't Like Me ... They Really Don't Like Me

Andrew Sullivan: The Right On Jindal

Think Progress: Fox Panel’s Verdict On Jindal’s Speech: ‘Childish,’ ‘Amateurish,’ ‘Not Exactly Terrific’

Taylor Marsh: Calling Sarah Palin

LEHRER: Now that, of course, was Gov. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, making the Republican response. David, how well do you think he did? 

BROOKS: Uh, not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I oppose the stimulus because I thought it was poorly drafted. But to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" - it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we're just gonna - that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that - In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say "government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending," it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate. Some people say the Republican Party lost its way because they got too moderate. Some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and so he's making that case. I think it's insane, and I just think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.

Republicans might have to rethink this Jindal thing.

Calling Sarah Palin? Yep, all Palin has to do is stay out of sight and study. They'll end up begging her to come back, with Rush & Sean Hannity leading the cheers. She can't answer the simplest questions but at least she can deliver a speech.


Piling On

Steve Benen: SO MUCH FOR THE JINDAL BREAKTHROUGH...

Paul Begala: Memo to Bobby Jindal: Dump Rush

TBogg: Bobby, we hardly knew ye

John Aravosis (DC): Bobby Jindal epitomizes Republicanism

Nick Baumann: Bobby Jindal's Stimulus Lies

Joe Sudbay (DC): Jindal's reviews are in: "really poor performance" "unserious" "hackneyed" "childish" (and that's just from one article in Politico)

Jamison Foser: Will media repeat Jindal's false attack on Obama, or correct it?

John Amato: Bobby Jindal's Zombie like performance uses phony Republican talking point of 'magnetic levitation' trains