Bobby Jindal's Implosion

Jindal engaged in self-prostitution at Liberty University

For sometime now there seemingly has been no limit to how low Bobby Jindal has been willing to go in order to prostitute himself to the Christofasists and other ugly elements of the Republican Party base,  Despite his high level of education he has worn claimed ignorance on his sleeve and pandered to the ugliest religious extremists in the GOP seemingly forgetting that no matter the level of self-prostitution, he has the wrong skin color and comes from a Hindu background - things equating to the kiss of death in today's GOP.  At least for now, all Jindal's efforts would seem to have been for naught as reviewed in a column in the New York Times.  Here are column highlights:

What happened to Bobby Jindal?  He was the next wave of Republican. He was young and smart — a Rhodes scholar. He was the son of immigrants and the first Indian-American governor in this country’s history.

Jindal had all the right rhetoric. . . . .In 2013, he demanded that the G.O.P. “stop being the stupid party.”  Jindal was the brainy Moses coming to deliver his people from the bondage of inanity. But that was then.

Now, Jindal has gone from being one of the most popular governors in the country to one of the least popular.

In the latest CNN/ORC poll of Republicans and independents who lean Republican, only 1 percent said that he was the candidate they would most likely support for the Republican nomination. Even “none/no one” got 6 percent.

And in a desperate attempt at relevancy — and press — he has lately been sliding further into Islamic hysteria.  In January, he caused a controversy by claiming that parts of Europe were “no-go zones” because of Muslim extremists. Jindal said that there were cities “where non-Muslims simply don’t go in,” like Birmingham in Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron said in response: “When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fools’ Day. This guy is clearly a complete idiot.”

That hasn’t stopped Jindal. Last week on Fox News, he set about defending his statement that America “shouldn’t tolerate those who want to come and try to impose some variant, or some version, of Shariah law.”

The smart-on-paper Jindal increasingly comes across as nuttier than a piece of praline.

On Friday, Robert Mann, a columnist at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, called for Jindal’s resignation, citing all of the problems in the state that the governor isn’t focusing on as he tries to gin up a greater national profile:

“We have some of the nation’s highest poverty and worst health outcomes and you’ve done little to address them. Baton Rouge, your hometown, has the nation’s second-highest H.I.V. rate (New Orleans is fourth), but you’ve done nothing to address that crisis. What you have done is hollow out higher education and inject needless confusion and rancor into the state’s elementary and secondary education system. Meanwhile, the state’s health care system is a fractured, dysfunctional mess under your privatization schemes. Now, you’ve outsourced the state’s tax policy to Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.”

Louisiana’s fiscal picture is dire. As Politico reported in February:  “Jindal is preparing a budget to close a $1.6 billion shortfall in Louisiana, a particularly daunting task after the $400 million in additional money he had to scare up to fill a budget gap for the current year. The president of Louisiana State University said earlier this month that the state’s flagship school is preparing for a 40 percent cut in its operating budget next year.”

Jindal has made a mess of Louisiana and wrecked his reputation in the process. His odds of becoming president of the United States have shrunk to nil.

It should be noted that while trashing Louisiana, Jindal has followed all the usual GOP prescriptions for voodoo economics.