Cheat Sheet

Where are we getting these guys in the Repub party. He's an out of touch mutant. What was that craziness about Katrina?

How could a supposedly"bright, upcoming Repug star" bring up the failures of Katrina??? Apparently, he did not read President Obama's speech prior to delivering a "response". He proved to be a dreadful speaker lacking in any new or creative ideas to move forward....

If he is the "brightest" star among upcoming Repubs, they are in more serious trouble than originally thought. His delivery like something from "Reading Rainbow". It was like he was reading a story to children. Any minute I expected him to say, "And then, the big bad wolf"... This guy wants to be President, no way!

I have never seen Bobby speak before. My very first thought when seeing him appear was of a cartoon. Then he started to speak. If this is the best the republicans have to offer, bring 'em on. What could possibly have possessed the good people of Louisiana to elect such a moron.

I missed the speech but, wow, if even Fox thought it was bad it must have been a major disaster. Youtube here I come...

Jindal has totally missed the point of why Katrina was so disastrous. It's not because we had too much government, it's because the government we had was unresponsive, unintelligent, underfunded, and grossly unprepared. We don't need less government, we just need competent government. During Katrina, only the military and the federal government had the resources to help the citizens of the Gulf Coast. No private company or group of citizens could have done the job because they were all under water.

Repubs are always stuck on the notion that government is bad. That's like an abusive parent saying parents are bad. Which doesn't mean that parents themselves are evil or unnecessary, it just means that you happen to be a bad parent. During Katrina, we didn't need FEMA to get out of our way, we needed someone better than a horse beauty contest judge calling the shots. We needed a better parent.

Gov. Jindal, if you want less government, start with ending the practice of telling me what I can't do, who I can't marry, what I can't smoke, and what technologies we can't develop. If you and your GOP cohorts think we can accomplish the goals of the stimulus for half the price, only accept half the money. But shut up while the rest of us reap the benefits of all the tax dollars we've put into the system.

Right.........if we were just a little more ideological, the unnecessary war, the tanking economy and the rampant corruption of our officials wouldn't be counted against us.

Looks like Jindal outlined his "plan" for the next 'Katrina':
http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=6354

I was stunned by Jindal's poor performance, having seen him several times on talk shows. And the content of his speech was even worse than the delivery.

I agree with the other posters that bringing up Katrina was completely looney! On top of reminding people yet again that we can't trust anti-government Republicans to run government, and that we really need government in a crisis, Jindal and the sheriff he praised are both ..........GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS!! Nothing like going on TV and saying you can't trust people like us. Brilliant and bizarre!

Colbert said it best at Bush's press dinner: "I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least, and by that standard, this government is doing an outstanding job in New Orleans."

It never ceases to amaze me how Republicans are all anti-"big government" and anti-porkbarelling so long as they're the opposition. Once they're in charge, though, hold onto your hats, because you don't know from government spending until you've seen Republicans spend.

it was amateur night.

pathetic. tragic. painful to watch.

couple this with his fabrication of actually being there with lee, his misinformed slight, regarding magnetic rail and disneyland, talking to the public as if they are a nation of 10 year olds and the republican standard of "us v. them", and it is safe to say that, with due respect to bob dylan, the republicans are headed "90 miles an hour down a dead end street".

at least palin was entertaining.

Let's see... the new republican poster children are an Indian(Jindal), a black man(Steele) and a woman(Palin).

Do they really think we don't see the rich white guys behind the curtain?

These guys want raped women to endure pregnancy(no exceptions to abortion being illegal), more of the same give to the rich failed policies and less regulation.

Yeah that's worked so well.

The republicans are searching hard for an intellectual with vision to come up from the rear and represent the party. Jindal was put out front to see if he could cut the mustard. It was worth a try. After the failure of of the McCain/Palin ticket the party realizes it cannot base itself on the thought process of the Republican Right low information voter block and their previous oracle, Mr. Bush.

You lead the beast with Jindal???

This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.

Jindal is not the Presidential candidate of the future, but I thought he did a good job stating what a Republican is....We need to win over many other voters but they must buy into the idea that Government's function is to help people help themselves, not to divide the productivity of the populous among everyone. I believe after the next four years Republicans may decide a Romney - Rice ticket is the way to go afterall.......

Rindal is new to me, and my intention was to keep an open mind and try to understand whatever case he would make.

But I couldn't get past his dead-ringer resemblance to Alfred E. Newman. Not his fault, of course, but he looks like a simpleton. Regretably, his presentation was pretty much in kind.

I would love to read some comments from republicans on Jindal's speech. Any independents that would like to express their views?
I think Jindal's speech is an indication that republicans have nothing to offer, on the other hand Obama's speech at least proffered solutions and optimism. I am guessing the dial on the "fear mongering machine" will be turned up significantly today. Do republicans want Obama to succeed in salvaging our future? I would venture to say they will do everything possible to prevent his success which really makes the next 4 years scary.

They lost more than principles they lost there soul with bush's freemason agenda and propaganda war waged on the american people its hard to run from lies when there so heavy on your back you can barely walk

I was hoping for at least something different from Jindal, but we got the same-old same-old. "Democrats trust Washington politicians, we trust the American people," "Too much spending," "tax cuts"....

Blah blah blah blah blah. The GOP clearly is hung up on race and gender. How else to explain Palin, Jindal, and what's his name, the news RNC head. "Hey! I know how we get Obama! Let's get some of our OWN coloreds and dames!"

Jindal just showed that while he is a neo-con Republican, he's no conservative. The Republican party just keep churning out these cardboard cutouts.

HaHaHa, Let's have a Jindal Palin republican ticket in 2010 & have them both run around the nation helping other republicans try & lose elections. One learns about other nations from her backyard & family value's from her daughter, husband , soon to be in laws & her son, the other learns about being a leader from George Bush on re-building destroyed cities, keeping the nation in line money wise, going to war & caring about the middle class by saying no to more money for his seat... I love it, maybe they could have Rudy as Sec.of defense also & McSame as Sec. State if he can stay awake long enough unlike Reagan..

Jindal was a disaster. If the Republicans were trying to weed their
front-runners, they managed to do it last night.

I wouldn't worry much about his oratorical skills, he had very little substance or persuasive argument. Very sophomoric.

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Why does this Beast blurb link to an MSNBC article written BEFORE the speeches were given last night and which have nothing to do with the commentary and reactions discussed in the blurb?

My problem with the Republican "principles" is that they don't really exist -- they are hallow talking points. Historically Republicans are dramatically bigger spenders than the Democrats. With the exception of Ike in the '50's, the Republicans are responsible for a vast majority of our national debt. It was Clinton who balanced the budget deficit in his terms and it was Reagan and Bush Sr. who built up massive dept, then Bush Jr. who returned us to a massive deficit and mushroomed the debt. If Republicans want to talk about the long term consequences of all our spending, they need to put it in context since over 80 percent of our debt, even counting the stimulus, was generated by their party.

And it is disingenuous to call Obama's stimulus plan the largest in history. In his last few months in office, Bush committed more bail-out spending to one sector than the sum total of the spending portion of the stimulus bill spreads to every state and a wide swatch of sectors, many of which were slated as essential projects before the economic crisis even started. And the GOP likes to conveniently overlook that a large part of the bill is actually tax cuts, which they label as tax cuts when they propose them but lump into their tally of "spending" when they attack the Dem's bill. Do they think anyone but their die-hard party members not see through it?