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Jindal's Katrina Story: A Tall Tale?
The evidence continues to grow that the story Bobby Jindal told Tuesday night -- about how he backed a tough-talking sheriff's efforts to rescue Katrina victims, government red-tape be damed -- was, how to put it ... made up.
Delivering the GOP response to President Obama's speech to Congress, Jindal had his first chance to impress a national audience. To do so, he told the following 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.
But there are several pieces of evidence that suggest this just didn't happen. Nothing, to be sure, that definitively proves the story was made up. But more than enough to declare it highly suspicious.
First, Jindal's story has Lee railing against the red-tape in the midst of the crisis. But Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, told CNN he didn't find out about the license and registration issue until about seven days after the incident.
Here's Lee talking to Larry King (via Nexis) a week or so after Katrina:
I fully believe that when then matter is looked into, we tried to get some boats in the water early on. When I realized that we had a problem, I was the one that made the call in WWO (UNINTELLIGIBLE) radio if there was anybody with a boat to come to a place so that we can get the boats in the water because I was around when -- the other big hurricanes, and most of the rescue done early on were individual fisherman, recreational fisherman that had boats that went in the water. Those boats where not allowed to get into the water when they were needed and I just found out about seven days later one of the reason boats couldn't get in was they didn't have enough life preservers and some of them didn't have proof of insurance. And I'm sure that there's a FEMA regulation that says that. But when a storm of this magnitude hits, you through those regulations out the window and you do what you have to do and start saving lives. (our itals)
It's within the realm of possibility, just, that Lee and Jindal are talking about two separate incidents. But from the way the details line up, it's reasonable to assume they're the same.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Daily Kos diarist xgz assembled a slew of additional evidence suggesting that Jindal took some serious dramatic license, at best. To summarize:
According to numerous reports, Harry Lee did not leave the affected area of New Orleans during the crisis. But there is no reported evidence of Jindal having set foot in the area during the period when people were still stranded on roofs -- which, based on a review of news stories from the time, was only until September 3 at the very latest. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests he did not...
When the storm made landfall on August 29, Jindal was on a foreign trip. His family was evacuated to his parents' house in Baton Rouge, and when he returned, he went straight there to join them. In a September 1st CNN interview given from Baton Rouge, Jindal talked about taking an aerial tour of the disaster area, but didn't mention anything about having been on the ground personally. We've reviewed Nexis and other sources, and can find no news reports putting Jindal on the ground in the affected area during the few days after Katrina struck when people might still have needed boats to rescue them from rooftops.
Schedule issues aside, it's also noticeable that Jindal has talked or written several times before about the problems of excessive red tape during Katrina, but has never told this story.
On September 8, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Jindal detailing how "[i]n Katrina's wake, red tape too often trumped common sense." Jindal listed several anecdotes to illustrate the problem, including one that involved a sheriff, and another about a boat evacuation. But nothing that resembled the Lee story he told Tuesday. You'd think that would have been his lead example.
And in 2008, Jindal told Human Events:
There are thousands of these stories. I talked to a sheriff in an area where they had people with boats that were ready to go in the water and rescue people and they were turned away because they didn't have proof of registration and insurance, they didn't bring the right paperwork. The bureaucracy was just awful.
The implication here is that Jindal talked to the sheriff after the fact, not that he was in his office during the moment of crisis.
As we said, none of this settles the question definitively. But it certainly raises a whole lot of questions about Jindal's tale. Those questions were enough for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, in a short segment last night on the controversy, to conclude that the story is "apparently not true."
Of course, Harry Lee could put this to rest once and for all. But he died in 2007.
We called Jindal's office, asking for any information that might help establish the story's veracity. They haven't gotten back to us.
Josh
Zachary
The Republicans made up a fake story.
Throw it on the pile. Alert us when they tell a true one.
February 26, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The hero of Jefferson County, Bobby Jindal. He and the late great Harry Lee put the bureaucrats into a corkscrew dive, eh?
February 26, 2009 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't news: all Jindal did was continue the Republican tradition of rejecting the rule of law for expediency sake, like they did n 2000 in order to bully and steal their way into gov't.
Like they did in order to take down worldscale terrorist madman Saddam Hussein.
Like they did by subjecting criminals to the war crime of torture to teach them about the wages of crime.
February 27, 2009 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jindal went to Disneyland. No seriously.
I would too after that awful performance.
My guess, is he's not sleeping very well at night. I imagine he feels about as ridiculous as Palin did after that initial Gibson interview.
I'm looking forward to SNL this weekend.
February 26, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait. Why did Palin feel ridiculous after the Gibson interview? Do you believe she possesses a sense of shame?
February 26, 2009 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shame!? A sense of reality!?
February 27, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
And, if the United States had invested in high speed rail back after the first oil crisis, Jindal could probably get to Disneyland on a clean(er), more fuel efficient bullet train rather than by ozone-depleting jet plane.
But, that would just be ridiculous, eh Bobby?
February 26, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Americans can do anything, apparently including fabricating self-glorifying tales of valor.
February 26, 2009 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep! Needlessly rejecting the rule of law is heroic!
Jindal for Medal of Honor! Nobel Prize for Fiction!
February 27, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just like a classic Big Fish story, Jindal's heroism grows with each telling, by Jindal, of Jindal's story. HAH!
By the 2012 primaries, Dear Bobby will have built a very large boat and begun gathering the animals two by two.
PEACE
February 26, 2009 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can someone spell T-U-Z-L-A??????????????????
February 26, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Positively Reaganesque.
February 26, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perfect.
February 26, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Repugs whip up phony outrage over Dem distortions or other "failings" that never happened. Here, one of the GOP's "rising stars" told a bald-faced lie on national tee-vee. It's time for the Dems to start playing hardball and faxing talking points about these things to major news outlets. And this would be a very good place to start.
February 26, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Boy Scout lied?
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/jade7243/2009/02/the-true-amazing-tale-of-bobby.php
February 26, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
hey TheraP... thanks for the shout out...
February 26, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is Jindal's point with the story? That FEMA was poorly run under Bush? Isn't that one of the reasons that people have turned against the Republican Party? I don't get it. Does he think that Louisiana would be just fine today without the $140 billion in federal aid it received after Katrina?
February 26, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, there you go again....
Gather Round Children, and listen to the tale of Bobby Jindal and Lighthorse Harry Lee!
Bobby and Lighthorse found themselves all-aswaddle, with red-tape binding their limbs, when Bobby screamed into the maelstrom "damn your bureaucracy, you can come arrest me if you are men enough!" and he slashed the red tape away and dashed into the storm to save all Good Americans. We owe him a huge debt.
February 26, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's even more confusing on level 2:
Level 1 involved the tired refrain that guvmint's bad.
But Level 2 involved the great (guvmint) man, Lee, and the greater (guvmint) man, Jindal rushing in to save the day. Pretty sure Lee was earning a county paycheck, and Jindal one from the state, at the time.
But wait. That can't be right 'cuz guvmint ne'er did create no jobs.
February 26, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'm shocked, shocked to find that Lousiana Politicians lie." (with my apologies to Captain Renault)
February 26, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zach, seriously - did you choose that picture because it makes Bobby look exactly like Alfred E. Newman?
Whose "what, me worry?" slogan, BTW, fits perfectly with the lying Reagan image he's trying to project.
February 26, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Surely some of the boaters can corroborate this story? There was little evidence that FEMA was organized or involved enough to do anything other than occasional photo ops, let alone be on the scene enough to interfere with boat launchings.
February 26, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Katrina Boats for Truth!
February 26, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some of the GOP guys weren't kidding; he really IS the next Ronald Reagan.
February 26, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is like Bush claiming to have seen the 1st plane hit the WTC tower on a TV. There, ofcourse, was no live video of that broadcast.
Lair!
Or not?
"So Bush says that he watched on TV the first plane hit the (North) Tower while sitting outside the classroom (actually at 8:45, when the first plane hit, Bush was riding in his limousine to the Booker school). Then (some twenty or so minutes later, after he has arrived at the school) he is informed that a second plane has hit. But, as Paul Walker pointed out, prior to the first impact there was no network TV channel showing the Twin Towers live, so what was Bush watching? It can only have been a private transmission, arranged for Bush's benefit, by people who knew what was about to happen. Either Bush knew what was coming, or he was told to watch the TV transmission (and not go into the classroom until he'd seen what he was supposed to see). Either the President of the United States, or someone closely connected to him, knew that a disaster was about to strike the Twin Towers."
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/bushflub.htm
.
February 26, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. Bushit saw the SECOND plane hit on TV -- the TV cameras were focused on the Towers after the first plane hit -- while waiting to go into the classroom.
So what was it that Card actually whispered in his ear?
February 27, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I love most about republican's making shit up out of thin air, is they always have to play a champion's role in the very lies they fabricate:
"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!'"
Jindal is the close minded, intelligent designed answer from the republican party to Obama's masterful command - they think that if they can prop up a skinny brown kid to regurgitate talking points, it will somehow counter balance the Obama administration's effectiveness. Good luck w/ that.
February 26, 2009 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
So there are two mysteries:
1) As someone above said, what was the point of the story -- all it really establishes is that FEMA, under Bush, was awful. Not exactly a news flash. Maybe one can answer that by re-reading his speech (I refuse to listen to it again) but it's hard to think of a *useful* point the story would make.
2) Assuming there was some purpose for telling the basic story, then what purpose did the embellishments accomplish? It seems no one is disputing the underlying facts -- some private rescue boats willing to go get trapped people were held back by bureaucratic red tape. If that is the point you're making, why add unnecessary - and apparently untrue - facts? What did those additions achieve?
Very puzzling -- and interesting. Puzzles like that tell you an awful lot about a person.
Example: Biden's frequently-scoffed gaffe about FDR speaking to the nation on TV, which hadn't been invented, and explaining a crisis to the American people, in a year when he wasn't yet president. What it tells you about Biden is that he sometimes speaks too fast/much to get every detail correct BUT that he's not doing it with any intent to deceive (those are clearly wrong facts, their wrongness isn't hidden at all, and in any event don't affect the message one way or another). His message - and it's import - is crystal clear, however. Anyone listening readily understood that in his opinion, it's important for a leader to communicate directly with the citizens, through the most effective means possible, and explain to them, honestly, what is happening when there is something frightening on the horizon."
These apparently inaccurate statements of Jindal's are a totally different kind of thing. You have no way of knowing if they are true without doing a lot of research -- you don't know why they were added -- and in fact you don't know what the overall point of the story was. ???? I am SOOOO tired of listening to a public official and thinking "Well, I wonder if that's true. Probably a 50-50 chance either way." This reminds me how much I hated it during the past 8 years.
On the other hand, I do think Jindal should be cut a little slack. His presentation may not have won any awards, but you didn't listen to him with the gut-turning rancid feeling that the mean and spiteful Palin speeches give you. He was not nasty and mean-spirited about what he was saying ..... and that's a vast improvement over a lot of Republicans we've been listening to in recent years.
February 26, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops. Actually FDR DID speak on TV. In fact, he was the first prez to do so. He spoke at the opening session of the New York World's Fair on April 30, 1939.
February 26, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually I knew that (amazing the odd facts one accumulates..) --- but Biden had referred to a year (1929, maybe) before there was either TV or a President FDR.
February 26, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a kid Biden was a stutterer. So sometimes his brain overruns his mouth. But he's not at all mean-spririted, and isn't seeking advantage.
February 27, 2009 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, "Little Bobby Jindal" wasn't nasty-sounding or mean-spirited, as you pointed out.
But as Tuesday night's night's rebuttal performance demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt, he still has one thing in common with the most rectal-centric of his fellow GOP right-wingers -- he's just as patently disingenuous, and he can certainly sling the same ol' tired GOP B.S. with the best of them.
Therefore, "Little Bobby Jindal" will get no cut of slack from me. The best I can offer is that his delivery reminded me of a 14-year-old valedictorian, trying to play the part of an adult as he addresses the audience of parents and relatives at a middle school graduation ceremony.
February 26, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hah!! Spot on! Captures it precisely. But, honestly, I'd rather hear/see that for an hour than one minute of Palin. It's a new standard for Republicans, you see: they get gold stars if they don't make my stomach hurt. (And, to be fair, there are some with absolute constellations, like Olympia Snowe and, pre-2004 John McCain.)
February 26, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
"On the other hand, I do think Jindal should be cut a little slack. His presentation may not have won any awards, but you didn't listen to him with the gut-turning rancid feeling that the mean and spiteful Palin speeches give you. He was not nasty and mean-spirited about what he was saying ..... and that's a vast improvement over a lot of Republicans we've been listening to in recent years."
Oh, please: there are two kinds of Republican approaches: mean and nasty; and doofus.
Jindal is a doofus.
February 27, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're doing a heckuva job, Bobby. no I won't use the term Bush used, well you know, in this case it'd sound wrong.
February 26, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
While evacuated in Lafayette, LA. after Katrina, New Orleans TV station WWL's newsroom was broadcasting out of Baton Rouge since there was no support for them in the flooded city. Jindal appeared several days after the storm hit on WWL out of Baton Rouge, telling people how he was going around videotaping the destruction in New Orleans, and he had planned on making a movie documentary out of his footage.
Jindal never once mentioned on TV working side-by-side with anyone, much less Harry Lee, and was probably wasting valuable first responder resources being helicoptered around much like William Jefferson commandeering a unit to bring him to his home to collect "personal effects". Pretty pathetic and a slap in the face of Louisianians that Jindal is blatantly lying about his alleged role in New Orleans during the days post-Katrina.
February 26, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Little Bobby Jindal."
My sister coined that derisive nickname for him off the top of her head, as we watched his rebuttal to the president's address to Congress. Somehow, that monicker becomes more appropriate with each passing hour, as Bobby's stature becomes smaller and smaller.
February 26, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, my. Sounding like Mr. Rogers is one thing; telling a tall tale is quite another. Ask HRC how that worked out for her.
February 26, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a Louisiana resident, I'm very relieved to hear that if we suffer another devastating hurricane, our fine governor plans to proudly turn away all government agents, services, and rescue boats so that private citizens can have more space to rescue each other.
February 26, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bobby is only taking a play out of the left wing lieing liberal democrat play book . Remember Hillary and her trip to Bosnia and Obama and his Chicago friends and he still has not come clean about his Muslim background..All politicians lie so lets spread it around.
February 28, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, this is my first post here, but I can't have been the first one to notice that "Little Bobby Jindal's" speech sounded remarkably like the character "Kenneth the NBC Page" from NBC's "30 Rock."
February 26, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hah! I had a feeling Jindal's little anecdotes might not hold up to close scrutiny, and I wondered how long it would be before the netroots pulled them apart. Good job!
February 26, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
There were no people on rooftops in the area server by Sherrif Lee.
February 26, 2009 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am a boater, my friends are boaters, there's nothing more enjoyable to me than messing around in boats. The navigable waters of the US are crawling with law enforcement. There are game wardens, sherriffs, city police, state police, coast guard, etc., etc. I always have my insurance and registration up to date and have the proof on the boat. So does everyone I know who uses their boat on a regular basis, nothing ruins a day on the water like a citation and fine for not complying with the law. I'm sure a few people who get out on the water are scofflaws, but I'm sure they are the exception. People who don't or haven't recently used their boats probably shouldn't be putting in and immediately rushing off to rescue people.
It's therefore quite odd that a significant portion of a rough and ready fleet of volunteer rescue boat skippers would find themselves without the documentation they almost universally carry on there boats at any other time.
February 26, 2009 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somebody shoulda reminded Bobby that there were no operable telephones in New Orleans for the first coupla weeks after Katrina.
February 26, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's the point of an anti-government story (those darn bureaucrats just can't get anything right) when the good guy (the sheriff) is also a government bureaucrat?
February 26, 2009 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somebody should also explain to Little Bobby that volcano monitoring isn't a joke to those of us who live in Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. Ashfall in populated areas like Anchorage and Seattle has a significant impact in our ability to get around, produce electricity, and even breathe. It also can be a life and death matter if a plane flies through a cloud of ash. The last time Redoubt erupted, we had a near disaster when a jumbo jet flew through the ash and lost complete power to its engines. Luckily they were able to get it started again and land safely, but many lives could have been lost. With monitoring, air traffic can be routed around ash clouds and populated areas can prepare for the impact.
If we're going to stop volcano monitoring, I think we also should stop hurricane monitoring.
February 26, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's give Gov. Bob the benefit of the doubt. What with being on national TV and all, he just got a little mixed up. The story he *meant* to tell, probably, was about the time he was ready to perform a very important exorcism, until a government bureaucrat stopped him.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/bobby_jindals_dance_with_the_d.php
...and before have too much fun yukking it up about how Jindal has ruined his career with a disastrous performance -- anybody remember another Southern governor who gave a high profile prime-time speech a few years back and got terrible reviews?
Hint: His first name also starts with "B", and the year was 1988.
February 26, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see - Clinton was panned for having too much to say and expecting too much from his audience; Jindal was panned for having nothing to say and talking down to the voters.
Which perception is more damaging to a rising political star's future prospects?
February 27, 2009 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
We won't be singing PAlin and Jindal on a ticket together any time soon: Alaska didn't like his scoffing at volcano monitoring.
February 27, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
The point of the story is that supposedly, common sense prevailed even though ridiculous government rules and regulations were in place that prevented people from doing what was needed and that if we aren't careful we will see something similarly ridiculous occur with the stimulus package. We don't need big government to solve our problems for us, blah blah blah.
As for the problems with his heroic anecdote..
Yes, people with boats were being turned away. That is true. Was Jindal there? I have no idea. Probably not.
Ben Cole - there were operating phones in the city. In fact the one cell carrier that worked was verizon. I know this because I was there.
Unknown citizen - the people that were turned away were not official rescue boaters or first responders. They were average, everyday people who had boats and were coming to help. You're talking about a state that has one of the highest uninsured motorist problems in the country. Do you think that people that don't take the time to insure their cars are going to insure their boats or worry about proper documentation?
Everyone from the lowest on the food chain (Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin) to the highest of the high (then President Bush) dropped the ball. It was awful and embarrassing.
I think Jindal oversimplifies things in his speech and reveals (and seems to revel in) his ignorance. I have no way of knowing if his story is true or not. Perhaps it what was a dramatic lie to sell his point, perhaps it wasn't. It doesn't matter. It was a weak speech that revealed his and his party's ignorance, pitiful bipartisanship and a desire to sabotage the stimulus package before it even gets off the ground.
February 26, 2009 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here comes a story 'bout a hurricane
From a man authorities now see as lame
for something that he lied he'd done
Put in a fool's performance when
One day he mighta been
the presnit of the wooooorrrllddddd!
February 27, 2009 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh and one other thing, we don't have counties in Louisiana. We have parishes.
February 26, 2009 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
THE POINT IS . . .
Republicans were in charge of FEMA, the Coast Guard, and essentially all other agencies involved in federal efforts to meet the Katrina disaster. How does this anecdote (even if true) demonstrate that Jindal's party can be relied on to make government effective in a crisis?
February 27, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are Louisiana residents really supporting Jindal's recent childish antics?
http://www.governmentalityblog.com/my_weblog/2009/02/making-louisianans-pay-for-bobby-jindals-politics.html
February 27, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to wonder how far St Reagan would have got in the era of the internet. Not far is my guess...
February 27, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do the people who have a website for "disappeared" press releases have a stash of FEMA postings during the Katrina debacle?
I recall reading there a FEMA notice instructing all potential rescuers to do nothing while FEMA sat down and made a plan to ensure their maximum effectiveness.
Brownie, judging from his book and TV appearances, STILL hasn't realized that sitting on their thumbs and twiddling them was the LEAST effective use of their time and resources. Out-of-state professional rescue teams waited around for days and finally went home. Out-of-state doctors weren't allowed to treat the wounded, even when tried to negotiate permission to administer only first aid.
Where are the wrongful death lawsuits?
February 27, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, Piyush, you've really screwed the pooch this time. Forget about being President, okay?
February 27, 2009 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps these boats were swift boats....
February 27, 2009 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink