Bobby vs. the Volcano

That sound you heard tonight was the collective sighs of relief from thousands of Democrats across the country who had read the press on Bobby Jindal and were secretly afraid that maybe the Republicans had found their own Barack Obama.

By all accounts Jindal is a great story - the Indian-American son of immigrants who became a Rhodes Scholar and then Governor. But wow, what a horrible speech. It's not just that he sounded like Kenneth from 30 Rock when he spoke - its that he had nothing original to say, his jokes fell flat, and he looked completely out of his league following Barack Obama. If I remember right, he came out against monitoring volcanoes. Which is certainly a novel political argument. If there is one thing I always thought about volcanoes - its that we needed less warning about them blowing. Bravo. Maybe its a swipe at Obama's native Hawaii? Maybe after Katrina the GOP is looking for interesting new ways to screw up natural disasters? Maybe they are going after the anti-volcano vote? It's so out of left field, I really don't know.

I will say that if the best example of "waste" you can find in a 1000+ page stimulus bill is spending to protect citizens by monitoring volcano eruptions, Barack Obama and his economic team have done an amazing job keeping pork out of this bill. I mean normally there is something truly bizarre sounding in there like $100 billion to teach fish how to sew or something like that.

While it wasn't Sarah Palin interview bad, this speech was pretty bad. Jindal is young enough where he has plenty of time to improve his reputation. But the first impression he made on the American public is one he would no doubt like to soon forget.