Oh. My. God. Jindal and Steele. What a flaming trainwreck the new Repuglican "leadership"is turning out to be. Well, please grab me another beer from the frig and pass the popcorn - this is just a blast!

And who can ever forget the hail of sniper fire he dodged to get to the sheriff's office.
All hail Piyush Jindal!

Well I am actually more curious as to whether any of the story is accurate. Conservatives like to tell stories about how bureaucracy gets in the way of common sense but usually when you scrutinize these stories more closely they tend to fall apart pretty quickly. Was there a bureaucracy attempting to obstruct rescue efforts over permit issues? I am not saying that I have never had any experience with Kafkaesque types of bureaucratic b.s. but that story sounds more than a little questionable to me.

How truthie.

Hey, don't hate on Bobby. He's just following in the grand Reagan Republican tradition of fabricating anecdotes to make a political point. Ronnie made 'em up all the time, from Welfare Queens With Cadillacs, to trees causing pollution, to scenes from old movies he recounted as though they had actually happened.

Maybe the Sheriff appeared during an exorcising Bobby was conducting and he just got confused as to the date and place.

Sheriff Lee was interviewed on LARRY KING about the incident and said that a week after Katrina he learned some boats hadn't been allowed due to both a lack of FLOTATION DEVICES and insurance. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/11/lkl.01.html The GOP seldoms lets facts get in the way of a story... but then this one was critical of a republican president's team so kinda silly anyway.

This is why we need a copy of the Ten Commandments in all government buildings. If it'd been there when he was about to bear some false witness against his neighbors (in this case, his neighborhood gov't bureaucrats) he could have just looked up, said, "My Bad", and said something else.

Like Rachel Maddow, I'm truly speechless. How could this supposedly brilliant Rhodes scholar be so utterly stupid? Did he really think he wasn't going to get called out on that story? Has he ever heard of the internet?

I'd say this GOP star has just flamed out for good. I don't see how he'll ever recover from this. Hello Romney '12.

He's just another prop like Joe the Plumber; Sarah the Maverick; Steele the Steely; George the Bush; ad nauseum.

Until honest, competent, non-Empirical, libertarian, small gov't, socially progressive, non-evangelical types of Republicans take back the Party, the GOP should get used to the wilderness.

If the American people can't trust him, how can his wife?

Why do FEMA and natural disasters inspire so many faulty memories? Al Gore misspoke when he said he'd visited the Texas wildfires with FEMA director James Lee Witt.

OMG. So funny..., the tears are just rolling down. But I can't figure if it's from the plain ridiculousness or the tragedy. These are supposed to be the leaders? Of what? How can this be?

Wanna bet the MSM totally ignore this story because they get their marching orders from Limbaugh and Drudge who would NEVER mention this EVER. So far not a peep on cable news

Haven't these people figured out by now that there is an internet out there with people who are able to fact check these ridiculous stories. One would think that in 2009 they would know better but I guess the stupidity or hubris won't allow them to realize this.

BTW, I guess this may put to shame those pundits that remarked that the content of Gov. Jindal's response was good but that the delivery was poor.

Ah, yes. This is the future of the Republican Party - their knight in shining armor who will lead them back into power. HaHaHaHa.

You know. . . I'm curious. . . wing-nuts made a big stink about Obama using various names growing up (most famously "Barry Soetero"), how do they feel about "Bobby" (ne: Piyush) Jindal using a name that isn't his real name?

Article says:

"The central anecdote of the GOP's prime-time response to President Obama's speech, intended to illustrate the threat of excessive government regulation, turns out to have been made up."

What I love about this is that, even within that frame, they blew it. Because in the tale, the noble, plucky sheriff is also... d'oh! A government employee.

Can these guys get anything right? I mean besides graft...

First Jindal puts himself into "The Exorcist" and now he thinks he's in a disaster movie. This is not a stable guy. Also, what's with him, religion, and women?

A republicrant who lies!
I'm SHOCKED, absolutely shocked!
Round up the usual suspects including this Piyush guy...

Was there some of that famous NOLSA sniper fire at the time? That was debunked, too.

It is fairly obvious that he was reading the text from a teleprompter. Not so sure he wrote it (all) himself. More likely he was selected by the Party to read their response to Obama; doubt if anyone else would do it willingly. Why didn't they select a Senator or Congressman if one had been willing? So give the poor guy a break.

Give the poor guy a break? For what?
He read the speech prior to airtime, it wasn't like he just went before the camera and spoke these lines for the first time without any rehearsal. He knew exactly what he was going to say, and the blame lies with him 100%. No one forced him to say any of this.

This is insult to injury as the speech by itself and the delivery were both achingly bad, now he has to backtrack the intended folksy platitude.

Misremember much, Bobby?

The Legend of Bobby J and Harry 'Lighthorse' Lee.

Bobby says there is a lesson to be learned, that govt. cannot solve our problems, just heroic americans. No, but govt. can sure conspire with spineless three-piece-suit types to drain our treasury into their pockets, leaving us all destitute. Govt. is OK for that.
I'm sure the GOP would love to see the govt. dismantled so all us heroic americans can just make it up as we go along.

See, Piyush got to yammer all this crap on live MainStream Corporate Media, and as usual all the debunking and outright lying get's exposed on the alternative Internet press. Bullseye! All the misinformed consumers of Corporate Pablum got the first message, and only the cynical elite liberals got to hear how it was all made up. Mission accomplished.

So, so subcontinentally consistent. Graduate schools everywhere in the U.S. have been very distrusting of Indian applicants - the quality and achievements of their college records is often highly exaggerated and outrightly falsified. American companies have bitterly learned in recent years of the wide-spread faking of programming and engineering backgrounds and resumes from Bangladore and Mumbai, resulting in significant declines in Indian technical hiring.

And thus it has now carried over to politics - a boldfaced public lie by Jindal right at the start of his politcal career ...

If true, the story was stooopid and illustrated nothing. The point was that people solved problems, not the government, right. The sherriff solved it, being a person, according to the fabricated story. Wait a minute, though, the sherriff is the government. So the government did solve the problem after all, even in this jejune fable. The discredited fable that Jindal claimed he was a participant in.

The GOP's best and brightest....voodoo Bobby Jindahl, nanookie of the north Sarah Palin, Michele "you da man" Bachmann and "da man" himself Michael Steele. None of these laugably ridiculous pretenders are even capable liars let alone capable of leadership. Those who would follow folks like these four wannabees must be desdendants of the rats who followed the Pied Piper of Hamlin into the the Weser river. Is it possible that they are all Democratic moles deliberately trying to destroy the Republican Party from within? Or is the Republican Party so thoroughly clueless and dumbed-down that they really are the best and brightest today's GOP has to offer?

Jindal what an asshole.

Does this mean BJ qualifies for backup secretary of state?

You people just don't understand. Bobby is a Christian and opponent of Womens' Right to Choose and evolution. Therefore, everything he says is the truth and everything you atheist unAmercians say is false. End of discussion. Republican(Idiotic) Logic!

Praise Jesus. Sarah and Bobby 08! (Yah, I know its 09, but the Bible is never wrong. If Jesus said it, I believe it.) Ignorance is Bliss!

There is something in this story that reminds me of the unpleasant image of a wounded animal, helpless and dying, who just bites itself.

Whoa, slow down people. You're gonna trip over yourselves. Ben Smith's update shows that Jindal's story was accurate. The "inaccurate" part is that his story fails to live up to what TPM interprets as the moral of the story, or what was between the lines. Calm down, the GOP can be defeated on their own merits.

Yup. Looks like it's not just democrats who lie, stretch the truth, or "mis-speak". Not a big surprise.

Republican trainwreck is absolutely right - the kind of spectacle that you want to divert your eyes from, but just can't. Perhaps Jindal just trying to be more like Palin?

Here's another one:

"The Big Red Fairy Tale - "Palin Will Be Our New Reagan"

http://nailinpalinnow.blogspot.com/2009/02/big-red-fairy-tale-palin-will-be-our_19.html

Dude, that guy just looks crooked as the day is long doesnt he?

RT
www.be-anonymous.us.tc

I seem to be the first one at Redstates to debunk this story. I don't know why no one else does. Makes no sense to let the crazies have the floor uncontested.

All you have to do is quote Jindal's speech verbatim which is on Ben Smith's site and contrast that with the hemming and hawing we're now.

My post at Redstates:

Jindal’s own spokesperson admitted the story is a lie.

Here’s what Jindal said in his speech:

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!’

But now Jindal’s story is that he overheard Lee recalling the incident days later to an interviewer on the phone.

His anecdote in the speech was nonsense, a lie. He wasn’t in Lee’s office when Lee was screaming into a phone. Lee didn’t offer to let anyone arrest both he and Jindal.

The republican party has become a cast of cartoon characters. I mean...how long will America keep taking these people seriously? The more they speak the more insane they all appear. This guy, Beck, Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity...WTF? All down the list is nothing but cartoonish crazies. Its actually kinda frightening.

BREAKING NEWS: Turns out the story regarding Bobby Jindal meeting with local sheriff was true afterall and has been confirmed by Michael Steele's sister, who catered the event from her defunct catering company!

This is what's so important about a story such as the one on TPM regarding gang tattoo removal and the GOP crowing about "wasteful spending." Until the Democrats say at every opportunity "The American people must decide if they can trust a party that believes government to be the problem while running to do the governing," we are going to have to fend off GOP stupidity masking itself as argument.

Good governing is messy. It needs smart, committed people. It's not instantaneous. It needs open, national, informed debate. The Obama Admin needs to keep hold of its principles and continue to stubbornly resist compromise that is not in the interests of the best this country has to offer.

Truth has a liberal bias. Republicans often have trouble with it.

Hummm and for your guiding light you choose a President whose administration sat with stupid grins while people were dying in Kentucky during a severe snow storm.

You choose a President who lied to you, lied to the American people and continues to lie every day he sits in the Oval Office.

A President who after placing the country in bankruptcy holds a summit meeting to fight the deficit. Did you fools catch the rest of the country laughing at you?

Oh yes these guys want you fools to believe that next year the GDP will grow at a rate between 5 and 6%. No one with an IQ over 50 believes that. Then again that is why you fools believe it.

What you ignorant kool-aid drinkers seem to be conveniently overlooking here is that the premise of JD's speech was that government let's red tape get in the way of common sense. You ignore the fact that the story itself is true.This article simply questions whether or not JD aws actually there when the initial converstion took place.Open your eyes and ears idiots, the article does not state that Lee's conversation never took place.It did. AND THAT WAS THE POINT-THE GOVERNMENT GETTING IN THE WAY-JD NEVER CLAIMED ANY HEROIC ACTS!!

How can you tell when a Republican is lying?

Their lips are moving.

Wow, this is almost as big as claiming to have taken sniper fire in Bosnia.

Is anyone disputing these two parts of the story?

1 - [the Sheriff said]‘Well, I’m the Sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!’

AND

2 - [the Sheriff] put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the loodwaters. 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.

Because if these parts are true (especially #2), then I don't have any problem with the story. It illustrates perfectly what happens in large government, and why large government should be avoided.

If these parts aren't true, then shame on Bobby.

But it is still true that large government should be avoided.

On a different topic, Why doesn't anyone ask how many "corporate jets" does the Federal Government "own, lease or otherwise use?"

If Jindal comes out and says he merely made a "misstatement", will that make everything okay like it did for Hillary? "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base..." Ah, to be a politician... The freedom to lie blatantly and never feel a moment's remorse. What a great life!

You know you're in trouble when the publicity surrounding a confession to a lie is a welcome distraction and more positive than that of your speeches.

Jindal is a little plastic CREEP. YUCK!

I am a life-long Republican. I hate politicians who "make up stories," "embellish stories", "modify stories," or whatever you want to call it. I think that most Americans appreciate being told the truth, without any fancy "spin" or modification. My experience has been that many liberals would not recognize the truth, even if they witnessed the event themselves or had indisputable photographic evidence presented to them, so falsifying a story is useless anyway. Conservatives have been lied to by RINO's for the last 4 years, and we are tired of it.
What the Republican party needs to do is tell the truth on a level that the average Joe, with a grade school education, can understand it. The liberal elite will twist the truth, or make up new "truths", so talking to them is a wasted effort. The average working man and woman have to understand how the policies of the current administration are bad for them, and will put their children in debt for their entire lives.

If this country is told the basic facts, and how liberals are saying one thing, but doing something completely different, then it is up to them to make the right choices. If the majority of the people in this country choose to ignore the facts and choose to "drink Obama's Kool-Aid", then shame on them, and we deserve the disaster that awaits us as a country. We need more leaders like Regan, who are not afraid to tell the people the truth, and clearly explain the choices that they have, and the consequences of those choices. Unfortunately, George Bush was a horrible speaker, who was not able to communicate clearly the consequences of the choices that the liberals wanted us to make in the last 4 years. He also was unable or unwilling to confront the many untruths or half-truths put out by his enemies.
In summary, what the Republicans need to do is find more leaders who are also good communicators, and who are not afraid to confront the distortions and outright lies promulgated by the current Democrat leaders in Washington.

It is good to see so much righteousness and outrage here. I am trying to find where you all demanded Hillary's/Bill's head on a platter for their NUMEROUS, well documented, self-serving lies....i can't seem to find those posts. fascinating. don't worry though: obama's going to end the Iraq debacle 6 months after he's elected! well, what he MEANT to say was 18 months.....

Republican tells lie.
Dog bites man.
Give me a headline I can work with.

Guys! Gals! This was a test and you flunked.
You didn't listen carefully.
He started out by saying, 'Let me tell you a story', he was just having some campfire fun. He never said it was true.
Whew! off the hook, now, where's his running mate Sarah when he needs her.

Poor stupid liberals I do feel sorry for you boys and girls. You though you were electing a messiah and all you got was a lying political hack from Chicago who is quickly becoming the worse president in the history of this nation.

Obama is a liar and a fool. I do not blame you boys and girls for being so angry I would be angry if I had been had by such a hack. Obama is a liar.

Get that Obama is a liar and he has bankrupted the nation. GDP down 6.2% get that moron messiah supporters? He is killing the economy. Wall street and the world are dumping American stocks and converting everything to cash off shore.

Hello???? Anyone there? Hello???

Wow...reading this board you would think that Hillary never dodged sniper fire or Bill "never had sexual relations with THAT woman." Everyone in gov't bends the truth to get your attention. Not sure who I believe, Jindal, Obama, or some lame blogger.

I guess you don't have to be a stodgy old white dude to lie to the public.