Wednesday, June 04, 2008

John McCain Needs Bobby Jindal's Report On What the Big Easy Really Exposes




So last night I am listening to a speech by Sen. John McCain in Kenner, La, and I get bummed out when I hear him say this in his speech.
Senator Obama has impressed many Americans with his eloquence and his spirited campaign. Senator Clinton has earned great respect for her tenacity and courage. The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans, and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes received.
When Americans confront a catastrophe they have a right to expect basic competence from their government. Firemen and policemen should be able to communicate with each other in an emergency. We should be able to deliver bottled water to dehydrated babies and rescue the infirm from a hospital with no electricity. Our disgraceful failure to do so here in New Orleans exposed the incompetence of government at all levels to meet even its most basic responsibilities.


Now some might ask why am I bummed? Isn’t this exactly what has been said by the MSM and the Ds for over 2 years now about New Orleans? Yes, it is, and I do expect the presumptive Republican nominee for President this time to compliment the Ds a little less, and to criticize the sitting GOP Pres. not so much.

I am voting for McCain in Nov., but I just wish he would reconsider his campaign strategy of complimenting Hillary and Barack in his speeches and criticizing Pres. Bush. Sen. McCain is not going to win Ds over with this approach. If he is so nice to compliment his D challenger, then Ds will only feel that more comfortable voting D in Nov.
Tonight Glenn Beck had Bobby Jindall as a guest on his program. Here is the transcript of the segment. I put in boldface the parts that pleased me the most.

Bobby Jindal is the Republican governor of the great state of Louisiana.

Bobby, how does this guy actually govern? He is as far to the left as you can get.

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: Well, that`s exactly right, Glenn.

And first off, you did a fantastic job in Kentucky. Talk about a speech with substance. And I couldn`t agree with what you said more about comparing this to icing. It`s kind of like we`re going into the phase of the campaign where the voters are going to ask, "Where`s the beef?"

I mean, let`s give Senator Obama his due. He`s probably the most gifted political speaker I`ve heard in a very, very long time. I think you`re right, since Ronald Reagan, even. But now, it`s time -- he talks about change. We need to elect a president that can actually produce and deliver change.

Listen to what Senator Obama says. He talks about change. He`s talking about changing things like raising taxes. He`s talking about things like eroding our Second Amendment rights. He`s for gun control. He`s talking about, I would think, weakening the way we defend our national interests.

When you compare his record to Senator McCain about fighting the war against terrorism, I mean, there`s a clear contrast. When you look at what he wants to change, when he talks about health care, he`s talking about more government involvement, more government control in our health care.

So yes, he`s talking about change. But that doesn`t mean it`s positive change.

BECK: Let me -- let me play this from his speech last night, because I was really struck by this. Again, a great speech. But think about what he`s saying? Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge -- I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK, that is great. That is fantastic. But you know what? He doesn`t have faith in the American people, because the American people always have to be protected from themselves or someone else, because the American people are just too stupid or whatever. The government always needs to step in.

He doesn`t have faith that people can recover from failure in this country. He doesn`t even have enough faith in Americans to own their own guns.

JINDAL: That`s exactly right. This is where the paternalism, I think, when you get to the extreme left and you get to liberalism. They think government can spend your money better than you can. Government can make health-care decisions better than you can. Government needs to protect you from the consequences of your own decisions. There has to be personal responsibility. There has to be personal freedoms. That`s part of what makes this such a great country.

Senator McCain had a great line when he was speaking in New Orleans in Kenner last night. In his remarks, one of the things he said -- it was a very pointed contrast. He said, "Look, I`m not running" -- I`ll paraphrase. He goes, "I`m not running because I believe I`m the chosen one at this time." He said, "I`m offering myself out of humility." Because he`s got a lifetime of service to the country: in the military, in the Congress.

We may not always agree with all of his positions. When you contrast the two, I think he`s a candidate -- he`s not going to raise our taxes. He`s not going to take away our Second Amendment rights. He`s not going to get government more involved in controlling our health care.

So these are two candidates representing change. The question we as voters should ask is what kind of change?

BECK: OK. Well, I mean, first of all, Governor, you know, I respect you an awful lot. But I mean, he is going to raise our taxes. Because he`s got -- he`s all into the cap and trade thing. And that is -- that`s a hidden tax.

But I want to -- I want to ask you this. He said in his speech in New Orleans, or in Louisiana, he talked about this is a failure -- you know, Katrina was a failure of the government. Well, what does he mean by that?

It was a failure of -- and you should know better than anybody else -- of the local government. The local government had the money, every step of the way, to reinforce their levies. And every time through corruption and everything else, everybody -- local and state government -- failed the people.

JINDAL: Well, a couple of things. First of all, in terms of -- and we can come back to energy environment. You`re exactly right. We need to have a more rational national energy policy that encourages domestic production, encourages nuclear power, clean coal, certainly, conservation and renewable fuels.

But we better be careful. As we`ll continue to export manufacturing jobs out of this country and drive the price of gasoline and other fuels to even more -- more expensive heights.

When it comes to the failures after the storms, look, let`s -- you know, people are trying to say it was this one`s fault or that one`s fault. The reality was there was plenty of blame to go around, with FEMA, with the local government. The Corps certainly didn`t design the levies properly.

But here`s the great untold part of that story. Look at where the successes have been. It`s been the faith-based community, the private corporations. It`s been volunteers. And that`s the great untold story.

And one of the things that`s happening in New Orleans now, we have nearly 40 chartered schools. We had, before the storms, one of the worst urban school systems, certainly, in our state. It was ranking among the bottom in the country. Now, you got more innovation, more entrepreneurialism.


BECK: You know and I know, Governor, that if -- if the private sector does it, that`s why the train bridge was built before the highway bridge was.

One last question, are you going to be the vice president? Would you be the vice president?

JINDAL: Look, no, I don`t think he`s going to ask me. He`s got many other people he can ask. I enjoy being governor. We`ve got a lot more work to do. We`ve cut five taxes. We`re doing our sixth tax cut now, our largest income tax in our state`s history. We`ve reformed ethics. We`re creating jobs. We`ve got a lot more work to do in Louisiana.

BECK: Governor, I have to tell you that I thought of you this morning as I was walking to work, and I thought of you. And I thought, you know, this really is a big day for African-Americans. But it`s bigger than the media even understand it. And I thought of you. And I thought you could be the next vice president of the United States

And you know what? Nobody even talks about that. It`s -- your ethnicity is no big deal. It`s bigger than the media is saying it is, because most Americans don`t care what color somebody is.

JINDAL: That`s exactly right. Look, when you`re electing the president of the United States, you want the most qualified person that`s going to do the best job. So many people make a big deal about identity politics.

You know, it`s -- we live in a great country, a great thing that it doesn`t matter what your last name is or who you are. You can do whatever you want in this country with hard work and education. Because you don`t vote for a president based on identity politics. You vote for a president based on who`s going to do the best job. It`s too important of a job. It`s the No. 1 job is to keep our country safe.


BECK: Governor, thanks a lot.

So I really do appreciate Bobby Jindall’s report about what the Big Easy really represents, and I only wish that John McCain would just listen more closely to him than to some of his senior advisors.

The optimistic one wins the contest. Barack has a lot of pie in the sky optimism about saving the planet, and We the People ought to know better. John McCain needs to convey the reasonable rational optimism that Bobby Jindall possesses. John McCain does not need to criticize Pres. Bush to win against this marxist he has for an opponent.

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