Bobby Jindal, Voice from the Grave

While news commentators spoke of the certain irony in the Governor of Louisiana invoking the evils of government spending, of corruption, and the massive failures during Katrina to rouse people to the Republican cause, I need to address a few more pressing and ridiculous issues that came to light during the Response from the Plantation House.

If you could look beyond the cotton crop, over the slave quarters, around the "Colored" restrooms, and past the ol' hangin' tree, you would see the Louisiana exeuctive mansion. I expected to find inside the aforementioned Governor Bobby Jindal (R-SelfPromotion). Instead, I found something else quite remarkable. Apparently, Mr. Rogers' corpse rose up and raped a ventriloquists' doll to produce a love child with a voice that combined condescension, creepiness, and cartoonesque cadence.

As if you could possibly take seriously a man who sounded like the narrator from a Hans Christian Andersen story filling in for the 1930s newsreel voiceover who came down with the consumption, he had something of "substance" to say. He spoke from the heart about what all Louisianans believe was the great "scourge." A functioning judicial system? Nope. Prohibition? Nope. Oil Revenue Taxes? Nope. Slavery? Yes. Wait... Yessirrey, he labeled slavery a scourge, immediately making his reelection bid more competitive.

Unfortunately, all of the state's life-sized cardboard cutouts of the Gipper washed away when Katrina tried to punish the gays in New Orleans. So, Governor Jindal had to rely on a more veiled reference to Reagan, invoking the "Soviet menace." Seriously? Soviets were the only threat you could think of? Is this 1961? I guess when you're complaining about taxes being too high and government spending being out of control, the most reasoned approach is to reference the Cold War, a time when budgets were balanced and government programs were logical, efficient, productive and never wasteful. Oh wait....

Apparently, you need no training in history (high school or college) to qualify for a Rhodes Scholarship, a seat in the U.S. Congress, and the occupancy of Louisiana's governor's mansion. But then again, history books are still useful. Something has to kindle the fire under the (not so) ol' hangin' tree....

-Ginger