Bobby Jindal, darling of the "new" Grand Old Party, keeps taking hits after his disastrous national debut.
Directly following his speech, Daily Kos diarist xgz called out the Governor for a quaint little story he told about himself and Sheriff Harry Lee being outraged by slowed rescue efforts during Katrina........ rescue efforts that were being hampered by unknown "bureaucrats." From BarbinMD aka Barbara Morrill's post on the controversy surrounding the Governor's claims:
During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: ‘Well, I’m the Sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!’ I asked him: ‘Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?’ He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. 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 come and arrest him too!’ Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.
There is a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens
The only problem with that story? It contradicts what Sheriff Lee said in a 2007 interview:
LEE: I fully believe that when then matter is looked into, we tried to get some boats in the water early on ... Those boats where not allowed to get into the water when they were needed and I just found out about seven days later one of the reason boats couldn't get in was they didn't have enough life preservers and some of them didn't have proof of insurance.
Today, Governor Jindal's office was forced to admit the story is not true::
"It was days later," Sellers said. "Sheriff Lee was on the phone and the governor came down to visit him. It wasn't that they were standing right down there with the boats."
Right. They didn't mean to insinuate the Governor was actually there. I mean, who are you going to believe....them or your lying ears (and the transcript)?
Further discussion can be found in turneresq's diary.
