Bobby Jindal

In the liberal fantasyland that is the Associated Press, it's only Republican governors with an eye on 2016 that are fraught with potential problems that could end their campaigns before they begin.  In their May 2 AP story, reporters Bob Lewis and Charles Babington sought to convince readers that the Republicans governors of Virginia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Florida are all train wrecks.

Lewis and Babington focused in particular on Virginia's Bob McDonnell and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, who are unpopular in no small part because of moves they made on tax policy. McDonnell signed off on massive tax increases for transportation, while Jindal’s failed attempt to reform his state tax code -- making the state income tax free but boosting some sales taxes to make up for lost revenue -- has eroded his once-stellar popularity. Of course, plenty of Democratic governors thinking about 2016 also hiked taxes, but they were curiously left out of the mix. 

Campaign 2016 has already started, and the New York Times weighed in on the presidential hopefuls in three stories Tuesday. So far, it's a hail for Hillary, a ho-hum greeting for Joe Biden, and hostility toward Republican governors Chris Christie and Bobby Jindal. David Halbfinger's Tuesday front-page story was loaded with hostility toward New Jersey's governor: "Brash Christie Plays Rutgers Circumspectly."

It does not take much for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to uncork his temper. He has called a Navy combat veteran an “idiot,” suggested reporters “take the bat” to a lawmaker in her 70s, and gone taunt-to-taunt with detractors on the boardwalk and in countless town hall meetings.

Responding to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) on Monday, CNN's chief business correspondent slammed GOP "weird math" and "balanced budget nonsense" on the sequestration and accused Jindal of being "misleading."

"And it's this weird math that the Republicans are using, that it's just three percent of the federal budget," Velshi ranted. "Except you can't touch entitlements. So it's three percent of a small part of the federal budget, which makes it a very big part of some major agencies," he insisted. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Charlie Rose led Monday's CBS This Morning by hyping the allegedly catastrophic effect of the sequester during a promo for a report from correspondent Major Garrett: "Kids without vaccines; schools without teachers; and massive airport delays – we'll show you the worst-case scenario for government spending cuts."

Garrett himself could have been mistaken for an Obama administration flack as he devoted much of the segment to publicizing the White House's bombast about the impending $85 billion in spending cuts. He uncritically forwarded the administration's hype about the general and local effect of the cuts, which are set to take effect on March 1:

Any volunteers willing to help this woman out? Anyone ....?

Liberal radio host Randi Rhodes cut loose this week with some pre-Thanksgiving venting about the vast ignorance of Republicans extending to condoms (audio clips after page break; h/t for audio, Brian Maloney at mrctv.org) --

In just a matter of days, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney will announce his choice for his 2012 running mate. No matter who Romney picks, however, the liberal media's line of attack is already clear. The Media Research Center reviewed news coverage of several potential picks, and found many have already been caricatured as too far right or outside the mainstream.

With conservative friends like these, who needs liberals?

Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh, but token conservative S.E. Cupp on today's Now with Alex Wagner blurted out on air, unprompted, the sort of ignorant, bigoted view of conservative evangelicals that you'd expect from a liberal panelist.

On Monday, liberal radio talker Randi Rhodes ripped into the South, including a wish that it would secede again. She played clips of HBO interviews of Southerners done for Bill Maher and complained "Bobby Jindal even converted from Hinduism -- Nikki Haley, too -- in order to be acceptable to the conservative South in Louisiana and uh -- [about a five second pause] Georgia! I mean, that is crazy that in order to be acceptable to the party you have to, you know, pretend that you've given up your religion!"

Haley is governor of South Carolina, not Georgia, and her family are Sikh, not Hindu. Jindal converted to Catholicism in high school, so it's a little tough to argue it was all political calculation. Haley and her husband attend a Methodist church but she also was married in the Sikh faith out of respect for her parents. Liberal outlets like NPR have raised questions about the sincerity of her conversion.

This time four years ago, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana was elected as the first Indian-American governor, instantly becoming a rising star among Republicans. This Saturday, in yet another conservative victory, Jindal was reelected in a landslide win, garnering 66% of the vote among nine other candidates and winning every parish in Louisiana.

What do you think was most instrumental in Jindal's reelection? Do you think he will run for president after his second terms as Louisiana governor? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Bobby Jindal, on Monday's Today show, slammed the Obama administration for its slow response to the BP oil spill off the coast of Lousiana, charging that: "It seemed like the federal government was disconnected from the facts on the ground." However Today co-anchor offered excuses for the President as he queried the Louisiana Republican Governor: "In fairness though, Governor, in those early days of the spill did any one really have an idea of the scope of this and have immediate solutions, ways to fix it?" On to promote his new book Leadership and Crisis, Jindal was told by the Today co-anchor that his harsh criticism of the President probably got him "dis-invited to the White House Christmas party."

The following is the full interview as it was aired on Monday's Today show:

As the Democrat-loving media pile on California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman over the illegal alien status of her former housekeeper, a strange thing happened at the New York Times Friday: columnist David Brooks published a positive piece about the former eBay CEO.

In fact, "The Austerity Caucus" never mentioned this new scandal that has most mainstream media members doing backflips.

Instead, Brooks presented a surprisingly even portrait of an extremely intelligent woman always ready to spout off facts about an issue with lightning speed:

Time magazine reported Thursday that Rush Limbaugh might have been right about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico not being the environmental disaster that everyone warned.

In an article surprisingly titled, "The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?", author Michael Grunwald first insulted the conservative talk radio host:

The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare voice arguing that the spill - he calls it "the leak" - is anything less than an ecological calamity, scoffing at the avalanche of end-is-nigh eco-hype.

Yet, in the very next paragraph, Grunwald shockingly changed his tune:

Hell-bent to speed down its dead-end road to irrelevance, Newsweek's editors stubbornly cling to the self-delusion that their magazine is not a partisan rag. But any cursory look at the June 7 dead tree edition proves otherwise.

[No, I didn't get inspired to write this following a dentist's visit. Sadly, we still have a subscription here at the office.]

Take, for example The Index feature in the Scope section. Assigning a number score from zero (awful) to 100 (awesome), Newsweek writers snarked that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal [score of 15] has often "[railed] against big government" but is now complaining "big government isn't doing enough to protect his shorelines." Writers also smacked around conservative J.D. Hayworth, former Rep. Vito Fossella and failed Idaho congressional candidate Vaughn Ward while praising author Joe McGinniss [score of 74] for moving next door to Sarah Palin's Wasilla, Alaska, residence. No Democrats were ridiculed by name.

A quick flip to the Back Story on the last page asks "How Queer Is That?" with a look at how it's "[f]unny how prominent conservatives with antigay records are so often caught in gay sex scandals." For that feature, three former and one current Republican politician were featured, as were former evangelical pastor Ted Haggard and minister George Rekers.

On Wednesday, MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show briefly mislabeled Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser as the state's governor, Bobby Jindal:

 

I rise today in defense of bacon, as well as consuming hamburgers on Independence Day.  And, most importantly, in defense of my mother's awe-inspiring pot roast.

Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, wants the government to make these classic American foodstuffs, as well as soda, alcohol, and being overweight, cost more.  I apologize in advance for the long length of the transcript snippets – while Brzezinski is pontificating by reading the ‘New York Daily News’ editorial, the rest of the Brew Crew is making fun of her.

No, really [emphasis mine]:

BRZEZINSKI: Some people actually cares about their health, so I'm going to read that for those people. [reading] "A tax on sodas containing sugar has also been under consideration by Governor Paterson, among others."

During MSNBC’s live coverage of President Obama’s speech to Congress, anchor Keith Olbermann tried to discredit Congressman Charles Boustany immediately after the Louisiana Republican finished giving the Republican response, as the MSNBC host informed viewers that Boustany – a heart surgeon – had been "sued for malpractice three times," allegedly subscribes to the "Birther" conspiracy theory raising questions about Obama’s citizenship, and was even supposedly taken in by a scam as he tried to purchase the British title of "Lord."

Olbermann:

Congressman Boustany, we should note, has been sued for malpractice three times. He is a "Birther" who believes there are questions about the President’s citizenship, and, as Rachel [Maddow] reported last night, he is a man recorded in court papers to have fallen for a scam in which he tried to buy the British royalty title of "Lord."

During the 3PM ET hour on MSNBC, co-anchor Tamron Hall attacked Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal for travel expenses, going so far as to compare the issue to the scandal involving South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford: "Well, it kind of reminds you of another governor who fought the stimulus and then we found out was using taxpayer dollars to travel. And that Governor was? Sanford."

At the top of the segment, co-anchor David Shuster declared: "In today’s ‘Making Your Case,’ another governor is in hot water for traveling on the taxpayers dime." Hall explained the reason for Jindal being in "hot water": "...claims that the Governor used a taxpayer-funded helicopter to attend Sunday services 14 times at a variety of locations across the state over a five-month period. Total cost, $45,000."

In reality, as the Baton Rouge newspaper The Advocate reported, the Louisiana Governor was invited to speak at those church services and met with public officials: "Even though he travels on Sundays, Jindal said he schedules meetings with local officials when he flies to church services. On July 5, for example, his office reported that the governor met with citizens, attended a meeting with local officials and went to church in Monroe. Jindal was back in Monroe four days later to meet with community leaders as part of his ‘Louisiana Working Tour.’"

John Roberts, on the July 21 edition of American Morning, appeared to expect Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to turn in a weak performance on the issue of health care.  Hilarity ensued, as Jindal, who turned down Harvard Medical and Yale Law for a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford, proved to be anything but a pushover.

The would-be newsman kicked off with some misleading statistics about Jindal’s performance as governor:

Governor, it’s good to see you.  You penned a rather scathing editorial for the Politico.com on the Democrats’ health care proposals. But your state ranks dead last in the United Health Foundation survey of overall health. It also had the fourth highest Medicare cost per patient in the country from 1996 through 2006, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. So some people out there might be wondering if you’re the best person to be criticizing the administration’s plans for health care reform?

Since Jindal is a classy fellow, and realizes that this debate is not about his performance as Louisiana Governor, he neglected to point out that he took office January 14, 2008.  That’s at least a full year after Roberts’ statistics ended.  The Rhodes scholar responded:

In their latest article analyzing the extramarital affairs of the deplorable Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, the Associated Press demonstrates once again that the word ‘logic’ has somehow become lost in translation.

In a piece entitled, Sanford’s extramarital affair a problem for GOP, the AP gleefully discusses the topic of Sanford’s misdeeds and their potential effect on the Republican Party – a valid analysis.  However, it takes no more than two paragraphs before the author dispenses with the aforementioned term ‘logic’, and decides instead to inexplicably link and attack several other GOP governors who have nothing to do with this affair.

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty returned to his routine of bashing conservatives and Republicans in a column published on CNN.com on Tuesday titled “GOP becoming a cartoon.” He accused the Republican Party of “pandering to the right wing nuts that comprise Rush Limbaugh’s radio audience,” and listed this as the primary reason that the GOP lost the 2008 presidential election. Cafferty also bashed Republicans for being too busy “obstructing Obama's programs and criticizing the Democrats’ spending plans that are aimed at trying to bring the country out of a horrible recession.”

The commentator began by criticizing three notable Republicans -- Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, and Michael Steele. He labeled the Louisiana governor “embarrassing” for a small grammatical error. Cafferty denounced Palin (a regular target of his ire during the presidential campaign), accusing her of performing a “tawdry grab at a few dollars that didn’t belong to her,” after the Alaska governor decided to reimburse the taxpayer dollars she used to pay for the travel expenses of her children. But he saved the most stinging language for the Republican Party chairman, simultaneously jabbing Limbaugh in the process: “Michael Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, down on his knees apologizing to the helium-filled poster boy of the conservative right? Pathetic.”

Time offered its "Ten Questions" interview to Gov. Bobby Jindal, but the questions it selected from readers were mostly negative, underlining how unpopular the GOP is. One even insulted his personal appearance, with the increasingly common liberal mockery that he resembles the nerdy Kenneth the Page character on NBC’s 30 Rock. Here’s a sample:

What is your reaction to the negative reviews of your response to President Obama's address to Congress? -- Tanya Gupta, Washington

I live in a volatile seismic area and was troubled by your comment that funding volcano-monitoring is "wasteful." What makes some spending superfluous? – Caitlin Kidder, Kent, Wash.

What do you think of comparisons following your speech between you and a character on 30 Rock, Kenneth the Page? -- Jae Edward, Minneapolis

Voters rejected the GOP in November. What changes do you think it needs to make in order to become relevant again? – Ankit Agarwal, Boston

Why are you turning down stimulus dollars for one of the poorest states in the Union? -- Sonja Blair, Edmond, Okla.

Did you hear the one about Joe Biden claiming that Louisiana under Governor Bobby Jindal is losing 400 jobs a day?

Probably not. A search at the Washington Post on "Biden 400 jobs Louisiana" (not in quotes) came back with no results. No relevant results were returned with the same searches done at the New York Times and the LA Times.

The math-challenged Biden, who infamously said during the presidential campaign that the word "jobs" has three letters (maybe you don't know about that one either), made this false claim Wednesday morning, and almost no one noticed.

One exception was TV station KSLA, which filed this report (related but not identically scripted video can be found at link; direct link to vid is here). Reporter Fred Childress's "Fact Check" told us that Biden isn't merely wrong; the Bayou State actually gained seasonally adjusted jobs in December:

Our friends over at Radio Equalizer caught liberal radio talker Mike Malloy in a bit of hypocrisy. Malloy obviously thought his wife was a scream as she pretended to be Governor Bobby Jindal portraying him as an outsourced computer tech from India replete with cutsey faux Indian accent. Malloy's wife acted as if Jindal was the Simpson's character Apu, or something.

Now, one cannot help but realize that if a conservative had indulged in such an outrageous parody of an ethnic politician, Mike Malloy would have eviscerated that action presenting it as a high crime. Yet, when he and his wife indulge in it... why it's hilarious don't you know?

MSNBC cable-show host Rachel Maddow shares much in common with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Both are wonkish former Rhodes scholars in their mid-30s, bright and personable. Each could be perceived as a political outsider, Maddow for being openly gay, Jindal by dint of skin hue and ethnicity.

Their politics are poles apart, however, with Maddow an unabashed liberal and Jindal a staunch conservative. And that Maddow views Jindal as a threat became clear this week.

After Jindal delivered the Republican response to President Obama's address before Congress on Tuesday, he became the recipient of withering criticism from both sides of the aisle. Maddow's critique of Jindal, however, was so over the top that it bore little resemblance to what Jindal actually said --

"1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" host David Shuster on Wednesday delighted in a comparison of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to the MTV characters Beavis and Butt-head. Shuster singled out the Republican, who gave the GOP response to Barack Obama's February 24 congressional address, for his "hypocrisy watch" segment.

The MSNBC host slammed "Jindal's hypocrisy" for criticizing what he called wasteful spending, including volcano monitoring. (According to Shuster, Jindal is a hypocrite because, while the governor attacked volcano monitoring, he's also asked for comprehensive flood and hurricane funds for his own state.) The anchor gleefully recounted an attack by liberal New York Times writer Paul Krugman: Reading from Krugman's column, he recited, "The intellectual incoherence is stunning. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butt-head." Agreeing with the juvenile insult, Shuster added, "Beavis and Butthead? Well, Krugman didn't say which one Jindal is. Nonetheless, all of us at '1600' agree with the larger point."

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.

On Wednesday’s Newsroom program, CNN’s Rick Sanchez referenced New York Times columnist David Brooks and The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan as “conservatives” during a short segment about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s response to President Obama’s address before a joint session of Congress. Both men are known for their less-than-conservative stance on social issues, particularly on the issue of homosexual “marriage;” their sharp criticism of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin during her bid for the vice presidency last year; and their sympathy for Obama.  

The anchor cited the two writers a quarter of an hour into the 3 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program as examples of how Governor Jindal “hasn’t exactly been getting accolades from members of his own party” for his handling of the official Republican response to President Obama’s speech. Sanchez referred to Brooks as the “heralded conservative columnist for The New York Times,” and read a quote where he criticized the governor’s attack on big government: “It’s just a disaster for the Republican party. In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to say government is the problem -- it’s just a form of nihilism.” He then read an apparently sarcastic quote from “noted conservative” Sullivan: “This guy [Jindal] is supposed to be the smart one.”

Attempting to explain last night's off-camera "Oh God!" exclamation before Bobby Jindal's response to Barack Obama, Chris Matthews, at the top of Wednesday's "Hardball," claimed he was taken aback by "The odd, antebellum look of the scene. Some people heard my reaction at the time," which contrasted with his view of Obama's address: "He wowed us! That's the running headline from last night's presidential address to the Congress. Barack Obama gave a great speech." This naked display of bias was so transparent that it caused guest panelist, former Republican Majority Leader, Tom DeLay to point out the obvious: "Listening to your introduction somebody is gonna accuse you of being biased."

The following is Matthews' entire opening monologue and then DeLay's reaction as it was aired on the February 25, edition of "Hardball":