Jindal Attacked By Fellow Republican

After the President's first joint statement to Congress last month, Gov. Bobby Jindal's speech had him go from one of the brightest stars in the Republican party to just another GoOPer for Independents and Democrats to laugh at. While the news of that night has long since quieted down, the part about volcano monitoring hasn't been forgotten, even by members of his own party.

From TPM:

Bobby Jindal's denunciations of federal spending to monitor volcanoes is now attracting some serious critcism from a Republican Senator -- namely Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, whose state has been recently disrupted by a series of eruptions from Mount Redoubt.

"Recently there were some comments made about federal spending for volcano monitoring being wasteful," Murkowski said from the Senate floor, without naming Jindal directly. "I can assure you that monitoring volcanoes is critically important to the nation and especially to my home state of Alaska."

In Jindal's speech, he said: "While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes ... $140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.' Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC."

Senator Murkowski in no way wants to be tied to Jindal and his idiotic and politically-opportunistic comments. When there are possiblly deadly natural disasters at your doorstep, the last thing a conscious elected official would think of doing is pooh poohing federal money that is meant to mitigate any potential damage to life and property. Murkowski's statement was a smart move on her part, but it does nothing to curb the meme that the Republican party is falling apart on message control or having any kind of real unity that they had enjoyed during most of the Clinton and Bush years.

Obama's Big Night On Capitol Hill

A few years ago if I had wanted to catch the President's State of the Union (or speech to Congress, whatever you'd like to call the first Joint Address in the term) afterhours, I'd have to wait and wait and wait. Now I don't even have to find a good quality video on YouTube, all it took was a short trip to Whitehouse.gov. I also got to fast forward to the actual speech when I couldn't take anymore applauding.

As for the actual speech, it was knocked out of the park with the bases loaded. It even topped his move earlier in the day to lay out a clear path of withdrawing our troops in Iraq. The address in its entirety spoke to all Americans, and all but the hardest of hard-core Republicans overwhelmingly approved. We already knew he was good at campaign speeches, but as President they just keep getting better and better.

Unfortunately, what is not better is the economy and that was the 800 pound elephant in the room (yes, you can equate that animal inference to the party with a similar emblem). Obama didn't ignore it though, he went straight for the pachyderm and spoke with truth and honesty that even got the applause of some Republicans. Of course, their party is in disarray and whatever bright hopes of new leadership they think they have is woefully incompetent and delusional, as we saw right after Obama's speech. As a Republican from Louisiana to talk about Katrina and complain about the government is...mindblowing.

Last night, we saw the heads of both parties give their best and really, there is no comparison, whatsoever. Obama owned the night.

Gov. Arnold To Gov. Jindal, Show Me Your Stimulus Money!

While on the show yesterday, Arnold was asked to Sanford's statement over taking stimulus money, but since he took his state's share, the request by California's Governor goes to his fellow Republican Executive in Louisiana, Gov. Jindal. Bobby Jindal denied his state approximately $90 billion in unemployment monies because he erroneously though that it would raise taxes. So, Gov. Jindal, hand that money over to California, they need the finances just as bad as you do. Oh and citizens of Lousiana, you know what to do with Jindal next time he's up for re-election (or if he goes after the party's ticket in 2012).