Because of a conflicting personal project, I’ve stayed away from my derelict gunslinger blog for a few weeks. However, I can’t resist commenting on the failure of the national media to fact check Bobby Jindal’s recent proclamations as they relate to his performance as Louisiana’s Governor.   

In criticizing fellow republicans, Governor Smarty Pants seems to have adopted Forrest Gump’s mantra, ”Stupid is as stupid does.” He exempts himself, although the word, “stupid” is appropriate in describing many of Jindal’s policies in governing his homestate—at least when he bothers to visit the capitol city of Baton Rouge. The fulltime frequent flyer and part-time exorcist seems intent on leading Louisiana back to the bad old days, which in my opinion, qualifies his governing as stupid.

During Jindal’s five years as governor, he has cut funds to education and health care, played games with the state ethics code, avoided transparency in his administration, alienated teachers and state employees, made a concerted effort to reduce the overall quality of life of the poor and elderly, and thrown up roadblocks to scrutiny by the timid local media that has been remiss in holding him accountable for his actions.

Ironically, Jindal relentlously stalks the national media. In the aftermath  of hurricanes, oil spills and other Louisiana catastrophes,  television photographers and network reporters have to hide from the governor. However, in recent days Jindal has been on a roll by getting extensive coverage for his provocative warning that the GOP must “stop being the stupid party.” And after getting considerable attention for similar remarks following the presidential election, Jindal has begun to sound like a wind-up doll by repeating himself over and over again.

His self-promotion reached a high point todayby writing a Washington Post op-ed commentary claiming that Louisiana and other states were being overwhelmed by the anticipated expense of Medicaid following the implementation of Obamacare.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bobby-jindal-to-fix-medicaid-listen-to-governors/2013/01/28/ff5c8e5e-6711-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html?hpid=z2

Jindal cares so much about this issue that last July he inexplicably turned down federal funds to help Louisiana’s Medicaid program. 

http://theadvocate.com/home/3307312-125/jindal-move-causes-stir

After all, the governor is a man of principle. That is if the definition of principle is hypocrisy. The truth of his rejection is he expected Mitt Romney to win the election and end Obamacare—”on day one of presidency,” Romney regularly proclaimed.  

Jindal’s alleged principles have been a huge setback for Louisiana. In a state facing a major budget crises Jindal went so far as to reject federal stimulus funds in 2009.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/jindal_rejects_32_million_in_s.html

So far, the so-called mainstream media has given Governor Smarty Pants a free ride—notable exceptions being his embarrassing 2008 response to  President Obama’s state-of-the-union speech, and the frequent comic commentary about Jindal’s attempted exorcism of a sinful woman while he was a student at Brown University. The free ride may be ending though. Most recently, Paul Krugman made note of Jindal’s regressive proposal to abolish income tax in Louisiana and increase sales taxes, which have the greatest impact on low income folks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/opinion/krugman-makers-takers-fakers-.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

Despite the low state of the state of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal continues to live under the delusion that he will one day be a viable candidate for the presidency—presumably President of the United States. But before he throws his hat into the ring, he should speak with a fellow Ivy Leaguer and Rhodes Scholar named William Jefferson Clinton. 

Unlike Jindal, Clinton was a actually a good Governor—one of the best in the history of Arkansas. However, when he sought an unlikely promotion to lead all 50 states, Clinton learned that the national media can be awful nasty. After his public policies more or less passed muster, reporters zeroed in on Clinton’s personal morals and business activies. Hello Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky and other alleged Bill Babes. And welcome to Whitewater Estates, the two-bit real estate development which launched a $70-million bogus investigation that amounted to nothing more than a waste of taxpayer money. Indeed, a team of closet pornagraphers led by Christian crusader Kenneth Starr were never even able to answer the lingering question of whether blow job is two words or hyphenated.  

I doubt that Governor Jindal will be vulnerable on moral issues unless they involve his failure to abide by the teachings of Jesus to help the poor. And since Jindal’s career has always been at or near the public trough, he will probably be exempt from questions about business dealings. That means he will have to answer for his failures as Governor.

Given his record in Louisiana, a serious presidential run will afford the national media an opportunity to overcome its incompetence by digging in Jindal’s record as Louisiana’s chief executive.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and  much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career and the characters I encountered during 30 years of muckraking. 

My momma described many people during her lifetime as being “smart, but without an ounce of common sense.” No doubt, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is smart. After all, he is an Ivy League graduate and Rhodes Scholar, which suggests he has an ounce or two of common sense.

Nonetheless, he seems to jump a few steps beyond sensibility. In some respects, Governor “Smarty Pants is like a failed meat cutter who decides to take up brain surgery without bothering to attend medical school. After pushing through legislation that butchered Louisiana’s education and health care systems, as well as carving big holes in numerous other quality of life programs in the state, Jindal now proposes solutions for the nation’s “edge of the cliff” budget woes.

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/bobby-jindal-opinion-fiscal-cliff-diving-84647.html?hp=l1

Given Jindal’s record as Louisiana’s absentee Governor, what makes him think he has solutions for the country. Yet, he hangs on to the delusion of becoming President. Most recently, he was sucking up to casino magnate Sheldon Adelson who invested $150-million in losing Republican candidates—foremost being Mitt Romney.

http://theadvocate.com/home/4608068-125/jindal-meets-with-casino-magnate

Adelson embraced Romney to lead the country after his first choice, serial philanderer Newt Gingrich fell by the wayside as a result of his own considerable weight. Now comes Jindal begging for campaign mone. About the only thing  he has in common with Adelson is supporting losers.

Louisiana’s fulltime frequent flyer and part-time exorcist was the first prominent Republican to jump on the off-key presidential bandwagon of neighboring Texas Governor Rick Perry. Like most voters, Jindal soon discovered that Perry’s band was completely tone deaf  and when Perry departed the campaign to take more music lessons, Jindal attached himself to the former Massachusetts Governor Romney—at least until Romney lost.

Not one to defend losers, Jindal verbally dumped on Romney and other GOP candidates.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/268633-jindal-republicans-need-to-stop-saying-stupid-things

I don’t know when Governor Jindal’s presidential delusions first took hold. Maybe they connected to the hallucinations of deranged radio ranter Rush Limbaugh—the ex-disc jockey and pillhead who is taken seriously by a venting segment of society that finds relief from their anger, fears and frustrations by listening to his hate-filled talk show. Limbaugh casually mentioned Jindal a couple of years ago, apparently causing the Louisiana Governor to become so excited he probably wet his smarty pants.

The Limbaugh plug was enough to send Jindal on a quest to set a world record for accumulating frequent flyer miles by speaking before republican gatherings far and wide—with or without invitations. His meddling in an Iowa state Supreme Court election prompted the Des Moines Register to suggest that he get his skinny ass back to Louisiana.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/charlie-mahtesian/2012/10/jindal-takes-heat-for-campaign-travel-137801.html

Sadly, Jindal’s national political ambitions have caused him to become a stalker of television cameras—except when he is asked for interviews on controversial state policies by Louisiana newspaper and television reporters. Instead of answering questions face-to-face, he puts out news releases. How he gets away with such evasions puzzles me.

In my day many years ago as Baton Rouge’s mini-Mike Wallace, I would have been following Jindal to the ends of the earth for comment. And that was not necessarily of my own choosing. The people I worked for insisted that reporters confront politicians on important public policy issues. The same was true at CNN and other venues where I worked in my thirty year muckraking career.

Times have drastically changed. Lack of accountability now feeds the fantasies of self-important politicians like Bobby Jindal, who believes his alleged genius allows him to leap from meat cutting to brain surgery with no steps in between. 

A majority of voters may not be as smart as Bobby Jindal. But fortunately, they sure as hell have more common sense.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

After maintaining a low profile for nearly two decades while raising a son as a single parent in a small Alabama town, Forrest Gump has been hired by the Republican Party to help save it from irrelevancy. Relying on his momma’s advice, Mr. Gump is championing a GOP mantra, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

A key factor in Mr. Gump’s decision was a statement by alleged Louisiana Governor Bobby (Smarty Pants) Jindal—the part-time exorcist and full-time frequent flyer who urged Republicans to abandon the title of “Stupid Party.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/bobby-jindal-gop_n_2121511.html 

Mr. Gump’s initial advice is to have Jindal perform a mass exorcism aimed at disabusing tea partiers and other malcontents in thirty states of the notion of seceding from the union. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/petition-to-secede-states_n_2120410.html?utm_hp_ref=politics 

Gump believes the idea of secession far exceeds the threshold of “stupid does” since several of states involved receive considerably more money from the government than the taxes they send to Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-confederacy-of-takers/2012/11/13/d8adc7ee-2dd4-11e2-beb2-4b4cf5087636_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

Instead of secession, Mr. Gump suggests the dissidents unite and form their own nation under the leadership of billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch. They seem to have huge sums of money to waste on political campaigns. Why not own a country and declare themselves co-Kings? A third billionaire Koch brother, William, is already building his own town in Colorado and owns enough property to locate a nation.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/billionaire-bill-koch-builds-private-old-west-town-184240977.html

Mr. Gump says the possibilities of a new country are unlimited—a nation with its own Fox “News” propaganda network and and radio stations for people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other talk show sages of the far-right to proselytize their messages of distortion and lies. A high fence around the Koch nation will keep liberals, Hispanics and other minorities out. More importantly, the fence will keep its nutty population in.

Mr. Gump believes residents can support themselves by digging for coal, refining Koch oil and polluting the air for fun and profit.  I think he  is on to something. However, I wonder if he is truly committed to the plan.

He tells neighbors, “Alabama is a shit hole, but I ain’t leaving. I’m rich enough from Bubba Gump Shrimp Company to hire security people to protect me from the “stupid-does” secessionists.”

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

Anyone who has read my liberal rantings on this blog probably realizes I’m the last person to defend GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney—an animated paper mache department store mannequin that tilts in the wake of every breeze from blowhard right-wingers. But despite my belief that Romney is completely out of touch with anyone except fellow millionaires, I think the guy is getting a bad rap from his inarticulate comments about the 47% of voters he demeans as deadbeats.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser

It doesn’t take a political genius to figure out that Romney’s comment to room full of high-rollers is consistent with the general theme of his campaign. In this case, dissing nearly half of the nation’s electorate is more direct than in his prepared remarks on the campaign trail.

More to the point, grainy undercover video gives his remarks a sinister nature. The same is true about th gaffes of other politicins, including President Obama’s 1998 remarks about redistribution of wealth and his 2008 “guns and religion” comment at a fundraiser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZWaxjiQyFk

My point is that in unguarded moments candidates say strange things when speaking extemporaneously. Secretly recorded video—especially video lacking context—distorts the impact of their statements.

Too many years ago to count lurked around Miami, Florida secretly filming mafia characters in the wild. I caught them doing such things as talking to friends in residential driveways, going to the post office, or in the case of so-called organized crime “financial wizard”  Meyer Lansky, having a high cholesterol breakfast of bacon and eggs after avoiding grand jury subpoenas because of an alleged heart condition. But no matter how mundane the activities of these guys, the video looked sinister—so sinister in fact that the mafia series for Miami’s NBC affiliate  received the second of my four Peabody awards (a little bragging never hurts, though the mafia prize falls into the category of “What the hell was the Peabody panel thinking?”).

Anyway, I didn’t send the award back. And in retrospect I learned a lesson about the use and abuse of undercover video which is useful, but only in rare situations. I’m not big on protecting my own privacy, as indicated in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, a memoir that discloses all my dirty secrets. And there are plenty.

However, I recognize that not everyone feels the way I do. Especially Mitt Romney, who refuses to release past income tax returns or disclose anything about specific plans he has to change government if elected. Actually, the former Massachusetts Governor is a victim of a dread disease and needs protection. During the Republican Primary he was exposed to a foot-in-mouth virus—a malady I didn’t know existed or could be spread by GOP presidential candidates. Romney’s exposure to the epidemic became apparent after he cinched the nomination and helped make fact-checking a cottage industry.

But whether infected by foot-in-mouth or not, no candidate can escape the scrutiny of hidden cameras in the digital age. Everybody has phone cameras and like me peeking from the back of a “spy van” in the 1970’s to catch racketeers doing something sinister, thousands of folks are aiming cameras at candidates to catch them saying stupid things. In Romney’s case, the amateur spies are quite successful.

Unfortunately, the pleasure I feel from his stumbles makes me feel guilty.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

But give the man a break. As Dana Milbank states in the Washington Post, the “lamestream” media can ill afford to lose Romney as a whipping boy. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-media-should-go-easy-on-mitt-romney–for-their-own-sake/2012/09/18/a274f24c-01c9-11e2-b257-e1c2b3548a4a_story.html?hpid=z2

A quickie (blog post you dirty old men) before I head to Florida to inspect the damage inflicted on the Republican Party by old white dudes attending the GOP convention in Tampa. At least Clint Eastwood wasn’t carrying a drool cup. Like many other folks—including a lot of non-partisan opinionators—I found his performance beyond weird.

Having reported on two national political conventions—the 1968 Democrats in Chicago and the 1972 Republicans in Miami Beach—I echo the comments of most witnesses to Dirty Harry’s strange meanderings. “What the hell was that about.” Maybe he really believed President Obama was sitting in the empty chair on the platform.

 But all sorts of odd behavior is occuring in this campaign like Democratic Senator Harry Reid’s psychic declaration that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for ten years, and the barrage of mainly GOP political ads that have overwhelmed the fact-checking industry. Shades of Sarah Palin, who was last seen outside the Fox “News” studios screaming, “Let me in, let me in.”

Sadly for wits and half-wits like me, the former GOP Vice Presidential nominee and half-term Alaskan Governor has been declared irrelevant. Shunted aside, she feeds her Attention Getting Deficit by criticizing the 2012 Republican ticket.   

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/sarah-palin-romney-ryan-tarp_n_1845315.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

I guess a “yellow dog” liberal Democrat such as me should be celebrating the GOP’s self-destruction. But the shame of politics nowadays is there is nothing worth celebrating. The divisiveness—especially the crap spewed by Rush, Sean and their ilk—has reduced the nation’s politics to the level of some third world country.

Anyway, its time for me to take a break and await the Democratic National Convention next week. I probably should not leak information my intrepid investigative reporting has uncovered. But I have learned the name of the Democrat’s mystery speaker. It will be Peewee Herman.

Off to Florida.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

Metaphor definition: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in “Sea of troubles” or “All the world is a stage.”

Vice President Joe Biden needed a better metaphor than his comment to a predominately black audience that Mitt Romney’s Wall Street policies would  put folks back in chains. 

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/14/biden-romneys-wall-street-will-put-yall-back-in-chains/ 

The Biden remark followed his claim and the belief of fellow Democrats that the GOP would “unchain” Wall Street, meaning the repeal of tighter regulations on banking and other financial transactions by high rollers. But forget the context. In today’s political environment, every word and every phrase is parsed by reporters. Minor gaffes become big news. Both parties are victimized by the superficiality of contemporary political journalism.

Worse, many of the nation’s voters—especially cable news viewers and talk radio listeners—have been dumbed-down to the point that they can’t differentiate between real issues and bullshit. Forgive my language, but I’m unable think of a better word describing coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign. And for that matter, most political campaigns.

Moronic reporting is non-partisan, though Republicans seem to bare the brunt of gaffes escalating to the level of being scandalous. Having said that, I admit to rarely watching Fox “News,” aka the Republican Propaganda Network, or listening for extended periods of time to a bunch of ex-disc jockeys with names like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al. If Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are any indication, my guess is that Democrats are unloved in those venues,

No doubt, the right-wing media branch has conditioned a lot of people to believe the damndest politicians on God’s green earth. How else can you explain the alleged popularity of Sarah Palin, Chistine O’Donnell and, in particular, a sizeable number of members of Congress who seem to be in some bizarre  competition to win the title of the nuttiest person to ever hold a seat in those hallowed halls. I can’t decide whether to vote for latter day commie hunter Alan West or conspiracy lunatic Michele Bachmann and her Tea Party allies in the House of Representatives. Each has a shot at a Gold Medal for the seriously demented.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-modern-day-mccarthyism/2012/08/08/0c6090fc-e1a5-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story.html?hpid=z3

Before conceding medals to Bachman or West, I have to concede there are other serious contenders like Texas Republican Louie Gohmert. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/louie-gohmert-aurora-shootings_n_1689099.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

But Gohmert may be disqualified because most politicians from his home state are slightly off kilter. Who can forget Texas Governor Rick Perry? What a tease Perry has become. He keeps hinting that Texas will secede from the union but never follows through on the threat. Please, Governor, do it.

Anyway, I’m home from vacation. And the Governor of my fair state has  awakened from his fantasy dream of becoming Mitt Romney’s running mate.  Delusional creationist and facilitator of exorcisms, Bobby (Smarty Pants) Jindal, now awaits the telephone call that will get him the hell out of Louisiana before citizens realize the mess he has created with his so-called school voucher program.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars 

The reality of what Jindal has done to Louisiana will hurt for decades to come. But maybe there is a method to his madness—the education of a generation of students more ignorant than their forebearers.

Sadly, much of the media and a lot of voters will be too stupid to realize the damage that Jindal and his fellow travelers has caused.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

Reader’s who have peeked at this blog in the past are aware that it will be a steaming hot day in Antarctica before a born and bred southern “yellow dog” liberal Democrat like me casts a vote for a Republican—especially Mitt Romney, the animated department store manequin and probable 2012 GOP Presidential nominee. But in fairness, I will say in Romney’s is getting a raw deal from a lot of reporters, albeit a dilemma of his own making.

Because Romney has been less than forthcoming in providing documentation relating to some aspects of his reign as CEO of Bain Capital,   certain segments of the news media have become an echo chamber in raising suspicions. “What is he hiding?” The question is being repeated over and over again by reporters, left-leaning pundits and representatives of President Obama’s re-election team. Romney’s wife, Ann, jumped to his defense today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19/ann-romney_n_1685735.html 

There may be perfectly good reasons why Romney refuses to release income tax returns and/or minutes of Bain Board of Directors meetings, though I can’t think of any offhand that would excuse a man who wants to be leader of the free world from making full disclosure.  Recent history has proven that lack of transparency has been the basis of bogus scandals.

Why did President Obama wait so long to make public his long form birth certificate, which proved to all but nut-cases like billionaire Donald Trump and Arizona tough-guy Sheriff Joe Arpaio that he was born in Hawaii instead of being delivered by an African witch doctor in a Kenyan jungle.

Why did Bill and Hillary Clinton delay delivering documents that would have ended the so-called Whitewater scandal before it gained steam—a $70-million taxpayer-supported charade that ultimately degenerated in to an impeachment that focused to large extent on the knee calluses of White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Since the 1970’s Watergate scandal, journalists have been doing cheap imitations of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters credited with giving momentum to an investigation that brought down a President. Admittedly, I had such thoughts when CNN dispatched me to Little Rock in the early stages of Whitewater. 

But there was no scandal to be found as was shown seven years later in the final report of the findings of three Independent Counsels, who combined to waste the aforementioned 70-million bucks. Leaving Bill and Monica’s amorous adventures aside, of course. All I got for beating the final report by seven years and $69.99-million was a reputation of being a Clinton apologist. Truth in reporting my Emmy-nominated story didn’t matter.

Anyway, I’m puzzled by Mitt Romney’s secretiveness. Maybe he doesn’t really want to be President. Surely, he knows concealment of information only breeds suspicions. And in the absence of a “smoking gun,” that is all that is needed to create a full-scale scandal—at least in the minds of contemporary journalists. Actually, I wouldn’t be shocked if he threw the election.

Romney only had to take a side glance at the GOP candidates standing beside him during the primary debates to understand the gene pool of his opponents. Think about it. Gaffe-prone Texas Governor Rick Perry? Mentally deranged Congresswoman Michele Bachmann? Serial adulterer Newt Gingrich? Weird Rick Santorum? Crazy Uncle Ron Paul? Pizza king Herman Cain? I can’t imagine that Romney wanted to be viewed as a member of the strange cartel.

Indeed, Former Utah Governor and fellow Mormon Jon Huntsman was the only candidate on stage besides Romney who seemed to have a grasp of reality. And Mitt’s reality changes  from day to day.

His most recent incarnation is being a whiner. “Poor me, the President is saying bad things about my business background.” Boo hoo. Romney must have forgotten his own barrage of attacks on Obama. Or the Golden Rule. Turnabout is fair play, meaning there is no place in politics for sissies.

Romney’s whining does provide a light touch in an endless campaign that sometimes seems like its been going on for a years, rather than months. But his hypocrisy is nothing compared to that of Fox “News,” aka the Republican Propaganda Network. A Fox executive says he is upset because the President has made good-humored, smart-ass remarks about Fox—the “fair and balanced” network specializing in manufacturing bogus scandals to discredit the Obama Administration.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19/fox-news-obama-lowers-office_n_1685723.html?utm_hp_ref=media

Ironically, the so-called mainstream media is on the brink of sinking to the level of Fox “News” by creating a scandal involving Romney’s previous business dealings and failure to release income tax returns—a scandal that is solely based on Romney’s lack of transparency. Fortunately for the candidate, he can stop all the speculation by simply changing his mind and releasing information.

As we all know, changing his mind is Romney’s special talent.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. 

It’s hard to even guess what GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is thinking in allowing Louisiana Governor and frequent flyer addict Bobby Jindal to stalk  television cameras as a surrogate campaign spokesman. But whatever Romney is thinking is subject to change if the wind direction changes. So why ponder the puzzle.

Although Romney’s political judgment is sometimes impossible to fathom—dissing Affordable Health Care at the NAACP convention is a good example—surely the retired department store mannequin is not so out-of-touch that he would select Jindal as a running mate. Or for the matter, offer any kind of responsible Cabinet position to Governor Smarty Pants. Apparently, Jindal is a man unaware his shortcomings. He has been conducting an unrelenting campaign to leave Louisiana and the mess he created. Or maybe he is just being duped.

Reminds me of covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago when Louisiana’s then Governor, John McKeithen, was decieved into believing he would be Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s running mate—a scheme that was devised to keep Louisiana’s delegation in line during platform debates over civil rights. Unlike Jindal, McKeithen was a pretty progressive Governor. However, he was handicapped by an array of problems in our fair state—labor racketeering, alleged mafia influence on government and racial strife so serious McKeithen bought national television time to assure the nation that Louisianans loved their black brethren. They just didn’t feel comfortable sharing classrooms, swimming pools and other public facilities with “Negroes,” a word the Governor sometimes had trouble pronouncing properly.

Bobby Jindal’s policies are the polar opposite of John McKeithen and most other Louisiana Governors in the last half-century. He is one of the most regressive Chief Executives in the state’s colorful history. And the totality of damage he has inflicted on the state can only be calculated in years to come.

As a boy growing up in Alabama housing projects and in other parts of the deep South, I often heard the expression, “He’s got book learning, but he ain’t got an ounce of common sense”—an envious put-down we poor dummies directed at folks smarter and more upscale than we were. At least in someways. I must be envious of our smarty-pants Governor. 

And speaking of envy, it appears that Jindal is jealous of Texas Governor Rick Perry, the man he threw his support behind during the GOP presidential primary. Jindal’e jealousy stems from the fact that Texas now holds the number one spot in the nation for uninsured poor. And by damn, Louisana is going to battle its neighboring state for first place by rejecting expanded Medicaid funds to cover a half million poor people in our state.

http://theadvocate.com/home/3307312-125/jindal-move-causes-stir

Jindal’s decision is a matter of principle rather than logic and/or interest in the welfare of Louisiana citizens on the lower end of the economic strata. Unfortunately, his “principle” places an added burdens on an already stressed health delivery system. But what can be expected of a Governor who unsuccessfully attempted to block the renewal of a minor state tax on tobacco—a deadly drug that regulary supplies patients for the state’s overburdened health care programs.

Bobby Jindal’s so-called “conservative principles” are apparently the same as those embraced by Republican U.S. House of Reprentatives members who voted for the 33rd time this week to overturn the Affordable Health Care Act, knowing full well that the measure would be rejected by the Senate. An over-used cliche describes insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Under that definition, the House is controlled by crazy people.

And crazy is a good word to describe the notion that Governor Smarty-Pants is in the running as Mitt Romney’s running mate—a myth perpertrated and perpetuated by pill-head Rush Limbaugh, ex-disc jockey Glenn Beck, virgin Sean Hannity and a group of right-wingers who are living examples that the nation’s mental health policies of deinstitutionalization are a failure.

There are other factors that disqualify Jindal as a viable running mate. Sad to say in this day and age, Romney’s Mormon religion is an obstacle to his election among many fundamentalist Christians—a large number of whom belong to the “birther” movement and are convinced President Obama is a Muslim, socialist, Marxist and practitioner of voodoo and other occult forms of mysticism, not to mention that he also happens to a man of color.

In 2008, Obama overcame the nuts and sent them whining to Fox “News.” And aided and abetted by the Republican Propaganda Network, they formed the Tea Party, a movement of malcontents and know-nothings now faced with the prospect supporting a presidential candidate whose only appeal to them is he is not Obama—Romney’s trump card perhaps.

But he faces a a long road, given his lukewarm support by conservatives, and it seems highly unlikely that the former Massachusetts Governor will consider as a running mate who challenges evolution, believes Noah lived to be 600 years old, and as a college student once engaged in an exorcism to rid a young woman of her impurities.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/bobby-jindal-exorcistscie_b_1526263.html

The futility of Governor Jindal pathetic effort to leave Louisiana for Washington is actually bad news for the state. The sooner he goes, the quicker an effort can be made to repair the damage he has done to Louisiana’s health and education systems, the state’s ethics code and quality of life programs that are now on life-support. In the absence of Jindal, Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne would be a pretty capable guy. At least better than what we have now.

Before that happens, though, Romney must get elected. And if that occurs, having a President devoid of any firm principles he stands for might be a worse disaster for the country than Louisiana is facing under the leadership of an hallucinating Governor. 

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

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