The Democrat smear machine is still at full tilt with TPM saying “gotcha!” to a Bobby Jindal statement about Katrina. The Jindal statement: (h/t Mother, May I Sleep With Treacher and Hot Air)

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: ‘Well, I’m the Sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!’ I asked him: ‘Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?’ He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go – when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, ‘Sheriff, that’s ridiculous.’ And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: ‘Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!’ Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

What’s the gotcha from TPM? That the visit didn’t occur the day after Katrina but a few days after Katrina.

Yup, some gotcha.

But now, a Jindal spokeswoman has admitted to Politico that in reality, Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone “days later.” The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.

Pathetic.

Oh, here is the Sheriff in his own words describing the help Jindal gave to him:

I can tell you first hand that with Hurricane Katrina, the day after, Bobby was in my office and said “what do you need?” And it wasn’t phone calls, he was in my office.”

Pathetic libs….just pathetic.

UPDATE

Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office, said Jindal appeared at the sheriff’s offices on the east and west banks several times in the days after the storm. The boat rescue holdup by federal response officials did occur initially as citizens brought their watercraft to a staging area in Jefferson Parish, he said. But the problem was resolved and the great majority of boats were deployed to the flooded areas of New Orleans later that day.

Teepell, who after the storm drove with Jindal to visit various sheriffs’ offices in his district, said he recalled being in Lee’s office in west Jefferson on several occasions in the days after the storm. Teepell said he remembers the phone conversation but did not know who was talking to Lee.

Lee was recounting the boat rescue story to the caller on the line, Teepell said. The phone call was not taking place while the boats were attempting the rescue operation, but some days afterward, Teepell said.

On top of Chris Matthews, that partisan hack, muttering “oh god” as Jindal gave his response to Obama’s speech we have another perfect example of partisan hacks from a local Los Angeles station. It gets embarrassing as the hosts of Good Day LA (a local Los Angeles show) and Bill Handel gush over Obama and his speech which said nothing. Gush, gush and more gushing. They even gush about the fact that Democrats showed up early for the speech so they could touch the messiah. Bill Handel say’s “can you imagine the aura Obama has now?”

Get ready for your barf bags:

Bill Handel: “No specifics, but I don’t think last night was about specifics. Last night was his version of the we have nothing to fear but fear itself”

Yeaaaahhh.

They even believe Obama’s assertion that he will cut the deficit in half.

In between their gushing they did their best to tear apart Jindal, calling his performance a complete “disaster,” “contrived,” “fake,” and “none of it was real.”

At about the 1:30 mark Bill Handle gets pissy over the fact that Jindal had the nerve to complain about 140 million going to volcano warning sensors. He said that there ARE people who live near volcano’s who would like to know when it was going to erupt. Calling it a program that makes sense.

Whoakay….

Rant time…..Listen, there will always be someone, somewhere, who could use something from this stimulus. That doesn’t magically make it money well spent.

The difference between the two speeches, other then the delivery, is the role of government. Obama said he doesn’t want to grow government at the same time he ensures that government will be growing to a size unseen before. While Jindal pointed out that anytime the federal government gets involved, it leads to disaster. There is no way the federal government will manage this economic crisis.

It comes down to this:

“This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them for ourselves.”

Obama spent little time dealing with specifics but said the plan will save or create over 3 million jobs while Jindal argues that tax cuts, not more power and money in the hands of politicians, or as Reagan called them the “intellectual elite”, will ensure that this economic crisis fades away quickly.

Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending.

That’s the difference in a nutshell. More government will not fix anything. /rant

But back to the Good Day LA gagfest. This part of the show I had to transcribe it was so incredible:

Steve Edwards: Listen, here’s the deal, at least from my perspective. Nobody knows anything in this. Nobody understands anything, but we do understand the emotional resonance and at this moment the Republicans are on the wrong side of that and they don’t understand that the public wants to cheer and love and wants to feel good in spite of the bad times and only a few of them say “wait a minute, wait a minute, we gotta go along with the tide at least a little bit.”

Bill Handel: What they should do is just shut up and just sit back and if they can’t and if they can’t embrace Obama and at least not rip into him…and at least let the programs fall and fail if their right and then sit back and go “guys, we tried that, it didn’t work…now lets try it our way.”

Just shut up Republicans. Don’t try to fight, just submit to programs and bills we don’t agree with. Submit and obey.

Just like the Democrats did during Bush’s two terms right?

Got this from an alert service, and passing it on to those of you who haven’t seen it yet.

Excerpts from Governor Bobby Jindal’s Republican Address

WASHINGTON –The Republican National Committee (RNC) released the following excerpts from the Republican address, entitled “Americans Can Do Anything,” that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will deliver immediately following President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress:

“As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country – and they instilled in me an immigrant’s wonder at the greatness of America. As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my dad. Growing up in India, he had seen extreme poverty. And as we walked through the aisles, looking at the endless variety on the shelves, he would tell me: ‘Bobby, Americans can do anything.’ I still believe that to this day.

…

“Republicans are ready to work with the new President to provide those solutions. Here in my state of Louisiana, we don’t care what party you belong to if you have good ideas to make life better for our people. We need more of that attitude from both Democrats and Republicans in our nation’s capital. All of us want our economy to recover and our nation to prosper. So where we agree, Republicans must be the President’s strongest partners. And where we disagree, Republicans have a responsibility to be candid and offer better ideas for a path forward.

…

“The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens.

…

“To solve our current problems, Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you – the American people. Because we believe that Americans can do anything.

…

“Democratic leaders say their legislation will grow the economy. What it will do is grow the government, increase our taxes down the line, and saddle future generations with debt. Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need? That is precisely what the Democrats in Congress just did. It’s irresponsible. And it’s no way to strengthen our economy, create jobs, or build a prosperous future for our children.

…

“In recent years, these distinctions in philosophy became less clear – because our party got away from its principles. You elected Republicans to champion limited government, fiscal discipline, and personal responsibility. Instead, Republicans went along with earmarks and big government spending in Washington. Republicans lost your trust – and rightly so.
…

“A few weeks ago, the President warned that our nation is facing a crisis that he said ‘we may not be able to reverse.’ Our troubles are real, to be sure. But don’t let anyone tell you that we cannot recover – or that America’s best days are behind her.”

Here is Bobby Jindal breaking down why this stimulus bill is anything but:

And all without a teleprompter. He’s a good speaker and quite concise in why he believes this stimulus bill is the wrong kind of bill. One problem he has is that he sounds like a college professor. While Sarah Palin can pump up a crowd, I have my doubts if Jindal can. Either way, he is a front runner for 2012 and rest assured, the Democrats and their buddies, the MSM, will do to him what they did to Sarah.