Is Gov. Bobby Jindal Sabotaging Gulf Efforts for Political Gain?

Quick answer: probably.

From AlterNet:

But, taking a cue from Rudy Giuliani's exploitation of the 9/11 attacks while mayor of New York City, Jindal saw a chance rebuild his political capital by using the Gulf oil spill. He sprang into action with press conferences and helicopter rides to show he's a take-charge leader. The governor quickly became Obama and the federal government's chief critic, relentlessly attacking their allegedly slow response to the spill and lambasting the "red tape and bureaucracy" preventing him from getting the job done. Jindal's theatrical deployment of these trappings of leadership has been largely rewarded by favorable press coverage, reigniting speculation of a 2012 run. But new revelations and a close inspection of the facts suggest that Jindal's sound and fury is little more than political grandstanding for the Fox News set, and it serves to obscure Jindal's own serious failings in the spill response effort. While Jindal has been relentless in attacking the federal government for dragging its feet, he has delayed the deployment of National Guard troops, led a crusade to build artificial sand berms that most experts say won't work, and confused the planning of the spill response. Moreover, experts said his "antagonism could actually slow down that response." "When that stuff happens, you actually take away the ability of the unified command to get their job done," said former Coast Guard official Doug Lentsch, who was involved in the Exxon Valdez disaster and helped develop the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. But the true impact of Jindal's blustery leadership may never be known, as Jindal vetoed a bill Friday that would have required him to make public all of his office's documents relating to the spill.

More here.

Katrina was easy.

New Orleans went for nearly a week, with people sitting on rooftops, or festering in the Superdome and Convention Center, starving and thirsty, or trying to get out but being shot at by nervous cops, before Bush's depleted FEMA and federal troops finally showed up. Almost always in such situations, it's a federal show, but the feds were way late to the theater this time--while everybody was waiting, Bush took time to vacation and play air guitar, and to publicly applaud FEMA's crony-appointment director, "Heck of a Job Brownie," who hadn't really done much at that point.

Like I said, easy. Blame can be assessed with one simple question: where the fuck was FEMA?

It's not so easy assessing government response to the BP oil spill. Certainly, I'm not terribly pleased with President Obama's leadership on this one. His now infamous deference to corporate authority, I believe, made him drag his heels for weeks, while BP lied, by several orders of magnitude, about the severity of the spill, until he finally took a stronger hand in directing and coordinating efforts to stop the leak and clean up the mess. It remains to be seen just how effective his efforts will be in the long run, but I'm encouraged by his recently pushing BP to establish a massive fund to pay for damages before they cut and run into legal limbo land.

Assessing the State of Louisiana's response is even more difficult. I mean, I don't really know what the state is doing, or what its responsibility is relative to the feds' role. Further, and this goes for both assessing the state and the feds, I don't really know what the government is capable of doing, or if the government is doing it. And, apart from the very broad imperative to stop the leak and clean up the mess, I don't even know what all needs to be done.

When you see people stranded in flood waters, you automatically understand that somebody needs to come rescue them. When oil gushes up from the bottom of the sea, threatening ecologies and livelihoods, it verges on incomprehensibility. So it's extremely difficult to know that Jesus Jindal has a point when he blasts the Obama administration for ineffectiveness in dealing with the spill, or that Louisiana's governor is, indeed, a hands-on guy, doing really well what Obama is doing really badly.

But I do know this about Jesus Jindal. He's a fucking puppet. People say he's really smart, but when you actually listen to what he has to say, it isn't much more than a clear articulation of that day's Republican talking points. I've never heard him utter an original thought, or even anything coming close to being thought provoking. I also know that his eyes have been set on the national arena for his entire political career: everything he says and does, everything, is aimed at getting into position for a serious White House run some day in the future.

None of that necessarily invalidates his criticisms of the Obama administration, or makes his helicopter photo ops nothing but PR stunts. But it sure does make it all very suspect.

Anyway, go read the essay. It's got lots of links to various sources validating its assertions. My gut instinct is that Jindal is cynically using the BP spill disaster as the ultimate political advertisement at the expense of the constituents who elected him, which would be no surprise because, in the Karl Rove era, Republicans are way better at that sort of thing than Democrats. But, like I said, I don't really know.

Go decide for yourself.

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