Gazing Toward 2016: Bobby Jindal Just Won’t Shut Up

Bobby  Jindal is, in Boston parlance, “wicked” ambitious. So ambitious that he’s been willing in recent weeks to slap his own Republican party silly, if it will help him with his wicked ambition for the White House in 2016. His play has been both well-concocted and absurdly transparent.

The Louisiana governor’s verbal escapades started only after he spent most of 2012 making GOP standard-bearer Mitt Romney out to be the finest one-tenth of a one-percenter who’s ever lived, or, in other words, the ideal presidential nominee to make Jindal vice-president. Saving that, Health & Human Services secretary was a good fallback position.

Romney could have said he disdained roughly half of the electorate, and the pre-election Bobby Jindal wasn’t about to get his megaphone out to disagree. Wait, Romney did disregard and dismiss 47% of Americans, and Jindal may as well have been a surrogate for Mitt in Death Valley. Whatever problem Governor J. may have had with Romney’s comments, no one could hear them.

But get this: the ballot-counting machines had barely been unplugged before Romney muttered something about President Obama winning because he gave “gifts” to certain groups – and lo and behold, Bobby Jindal rushed in from the desert, straightened his tie, practically leapt out of his suit and said: “This is not where the Republican Party needs to go. If you want voters to like you, the first thing you’ve got to do is like them.”

What? Hey Bobby from the Bayou, which bath salts have you been smelling down there, man? You want Republicans to actually like people who don’t agree with them? That’s like saying the Microsoft Surface is already cooler than an iPad. Don’t get ahead of yourself, governor.

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Your spineless shift toward the way the world really is continued a few days ago, when you announced (in all your alleged genius) that birth control should be sold to adult females over-the-counter – this, after several Republican men made fools of themselves trying to tell women about the female body – or how to run their personal lives – and promptly lost their respective elections in November. Talk about a smack down. You go, girls.

So now, BJ, you’ve gone and done it: you look like the supporter of sex all-the-time, anytime…the open-minded, forward-thinking formerly patriarchal politician reborn in memory of the muddy, drugged out fun at Woodstock. Wow, that’s a naked conversion right there, homes. He’s a liberal, damn it!

But, if this was such a keen idea in your Oxford-educated brain, why didn’t you propose OTC birth control back before November 6th? There were plenty of propitious moments for you to step forward and be brave – when several of your GOP brethren looked like stone-cold idiots when it came to discussing women. To my ears, you were silent as a dog whistle.

Speaking of dog whistles, wait…did we hear the Golden Boy say anything against voter suppression efforts, pre-election? There was no need to worry about Louisiana going for Obama, but maybe Jindal could have spoken out aggressively and nationally then about how Republican governors patently restricting one’s right to vote is not, um, likable. He’s definitely got some reporter’s numbers in his smartphone. But Bobby acquiesced.

Jindal may also have some odorous political reason for his near-bizarre announcement – having something to do with the new health reform law and those employers who claim “religious” reasons for opposing mandated insurance coverage for prescription birth control, etc. Doesn’t matter. Just shows how some people’s mouths move faster than than their minds.

If I were a woman, I’d believe anything Bobby Jindal said about protecting and expanding reproductive rights and access about the same time I believed Bigfoot was seen eating beignets in the heart of the Big Easy.

Bobby, we hardly knew ye. You’ve become, in a month’s time, a traitor to yourself. Pretty soon, you’ll be supporting naked skinny dipping in Lake Pontchartrain and pot-smoking in state government parking lots. Dude.

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Jindal is also getting attention on the national stage now for using progressive phrasing such as “equal opportunity” to talk about education. He seems to think vouchers for private schools are going to help millions of children in America get a better education. Par for the course. Jindal’s been busy the last few years looking like he yearns to privatize just about everything in Louisiana but hair salons and the kitchen sink. If he succeeds in full implementation of his hyped-up voucher plan, his second term as governor there will be over just about the same time we all see how well-connected GOP cronies in Baton Rouge and beyond benefited more than any large number of kids did.

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I am waiting nervously now to see just what Bobby Jindal will prominently say or do about gun control – something that you wouldn’t expect him to say or do, I mean – in connection with the unfathomable shooting rampage in Newtown, Connecticut. I give him a week. These days, the Golden Boy’s not one to let an unworthy headline pass him by.

Memo to Bobby: sit this one out. Nobody wants to hear any more from you for a while. Show you care about the citizens of Louisiana who need you. The country can wait, dude.

Tom Gasparoli

Sunday, 16 December 2012

Tom Gasparoli, writing under the pen name J.P. Kennedy, has a suspense novel on Amazon called Manacle Lake. 

Editor’s Note: Gasparoli worked for three months earlier this year for Louisiana state government.