Cross-Posted from The Almanack
I was humbled and honored to be chosen to give the Republican response to Pres. Obama's address to the nation last Tuesday. The response to my response has been consistent. Democrats think it was awful. The Republicans are hanging their heads in shame. Only Rush Limbaugh stood up for me. God bless him. He might make me President yet.
I want to begin my response to my critics with another condescending remark about President Obama's blackness. After all, that is the most important thing about him. It is not important that Obama inherited a country mired in two wars, one of them completely unnecessary. Or that his predecessor was spending twice as much money as he was collecting. I must always start by noting the remarkable personal story of Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and an American mother. I mean, it is just awesome how I noticed that about him. Without me pointing it out, some of you could have missed that.
This gives me a chance to slip in my own remarkable personal story. I am the son of a coal miner and a country music singer...Oh wait, that is not me. That was Sissy Spacek. Or was it her daughter. Never mind.
I got it now.
Here's the story of a lovely lady
Who was bringing up three very lovely girls.
Here's the story, of a man named Brady,
Who was busy with three boys of his own,
Till the one day when the lady met this fellow
And they knew it was much more than a hunch,
That this group would somehow form a family.
That's the way we all became the Brady Bunch.
So why isn't my name Brady? I know there is a connection somewhere. I make up so many cute personal stories, I get confused ... Oh yes. I got it now. I wanted to be called Bobby because I was a fan of the Brady Bunch.
I am the son of an immigrant dog from a far away slum who dreamed of becoming rich by going on a quiz show in America. When my parents arrived in Baton Rouge, my mother was already 41/2 months pregnant. I was what my dear conservative friends call an `anchor baby'. My father did not make it into `Who Wants to be a Millionaire' because Regis Philbin found him annoying. So he had to pick up the telephone and look for odd jobs. He had no health insurance, which is why he wanted me to become a doctor. I am still paying off the doctor who delivered me.
Time for me to trade on American stereotypes about India. Growing up in India, my dad 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 will believe anything." Except he didn't call me Bobby. He named me Piyush. So what if I make up the rest of what he said too? Reagan got away with making up all of his personal stories too, didn't he?
I still believe that to this day. Americans will believe anything. They will believe that I am the answer to Obama. The Republicans are pining for their own ethnically interesting person to counter the Kenyan. And I can show you MY birth certificate. Can he?
Let me tell you a story.
During the Fall of 2005, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat, and a good friend of mine. Did you notice that Lee is a Chinese name? I always point out the exotic ethnicity of people in my stories. That is my role in Republican circles. That and fix their IT problems. What was I talking about? Oh Yes. Lee. When I walked into his makeshift office, I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone:
What the hell do you mean, hurricane monitoring?
I asked him:
Sheriff, what's got you so mad?
He told me that some bureaucrat in Washington was telling him there is a storm coming. This faceless pencil-pusher was predicting that the storm would over-top the levis.
We had a good laugh. Those bureaucrats. Always finding another way to waste our hard earned tax dollars. What will they think of next? Volcano monitoring in Washington State? Earthquake modeling in Californina? 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 monitor him too!
Boy that was so funny.
There is a lesson in this experience: The opportunity in America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and the gullibility of our citizen. That is why Republicans put forward plans to create jobs by lowering income tax rates for working families, cutting taxes for small businesses, strengthening incentives for businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new workers, and stabilizing home values by creating a new tax credit for home-buyers. It worked so well the last eight years. Let me ask you a question
Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?
I am. May be not you, so much. Heard a lot of lost your jobs.
Let me tell you another story then. Who among us would not ask our children for a loan so we could spend money we do not have, on a war we do not need? That is precisely what the Republicans in Congress did for the last seven years. And it's how we wrecked the economy, created jobs for mercenaries or build a prosperous future for the children of the truly deserving 5% at the top.
Since I became governor, we cut more than 250 earmarks from our state budget. And to create jobs for our citizens, we cut taxes six times -- including the largest income tax cut in the history of our state.
That is why so many people are unemployed in Louisiana. Why we are at the bottom in the health of our citizens and the education of our young. How will we teach our people good values if we pamper them with good schools and hospitals? What would be the incentive for them to go out and show enterprise?
Look at California. It has the best public university system in the world. Do we really want to look like the healthy smart people who go to UCal and Stanford? No Thanks. We are quite happy here in Louisiana. We always have Mississippi to look down on. The Governor there is refusing to be stimulated also.
Us conservatives, we are a self-sufficient lot. We believe in self-stimulation. We don't need any one else to stimulate us. It is the kind of rugged individualism that we practice. Dick Army was known for that. So is Rep. Boehner.
OK. Time to wind up. My fellow citizens, never forget: We are Americans. And like my dad said years ago, Americans will believe anything. You re-elected Bush didn't you? I mean, that first time he got elected that could be dismissed as a fluke. But his re-election is proof positive that Americans can be fooled. That is what I am counting on. God Bless you.