WaPo Gossip's Low Blow on Jindal: 'I Found His Manson Eyes Disturbing'

Washington Post gossip columnist Amy Argetsinger didn’t bash Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal with some demeaning Indian stereotype. She overlooked ethnicity altogether and compared him to psychotic murder Charles Manson. In a chat session on Wednesday with her gossip partner Roxanne Roberts, she claimed Jindal had "Manson eyes" on the TV screen:

Jindal: Is not anyone's hope except Michelle Malkin's (and consider the source) judging by the post-speech commentary. David Brooks didn't have anthing nice to say. It was uniformly panned.

Amy Argetsinger: I found his Manson eyes disturbing.

("Jindal" is a word the questioner used in place of the location field the Post offers, so you'd usually see something like "Arlington" in that spot.) For Argetsinger, this could be called "pulling an Eleanor Clift." Clift tried a similarly low blow on The McLaughlin Group of November 18, 1995, and the target was Speaker Gingrich: "Newt Gingrich teaching manners is like Charles Manson teaching nonviolence."

A different chat participant tried out geeky white sitcom characters for comparison:

Rahm and Michelle were the only real hotties at the speech last night, as opposed to some of the Hollywood crowd Sunday night (i.e, Daniel Craig, Diane Lane, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman). Bobby Jindal appeared to be channeling Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock.

Mysteriously (or not), the Kenneth the Page reference also showed up in Perry Bacon's political chat.

In the Bob Kaiser chat on Tuesday night, the chatters' preferred zinger was Mr. Rogers, which is still much better than Manson smears. Kaiser was delighted at Obama's performance, so much so that he suggested the Republicans could wander in the wilderness for 16 years, with Bush playing the role of Hoover:

They will be back, we know that from history, but my own hunch tonight is that they won't be back any time soon. George W. Bush is a weight around their necks, and as the economy worsens, the weight gets heavier. Democrats ran successfully against Herbert Hoover from 1932 through 1948, though '32 was the last time he was on the ballot. Bush could easily play a similar role for some years to come.

(Hat tip: Tom Johnson)