As a quick follow-up to my last post on Obama’s State of the Union address, I want to briefly talk about the Republican response to the President’s speech. I say briefly, because I couldn’t watch more than thirty seconds of it since it was clear that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s decision to give it in a bizarre rapid-fire, sing-song delivery was a cripplingly embarrassing one. However the transcript of his speech shows that the content was just as embarrassing – inherently flawed and politically deaf criticism of the stimulus package combined with a complete lack of alternative solutions. How very Republican… Excitable journalists like to talk up the thrilling prospect of a Obama v Jindal showdown (no doubt thinking about the endless “Black President vs Indian candidate: how historic!” articles they could reel off). Hopefully, then, his pathetic response to Obama’s stunning address will dampen the media frenzy around him. And if you believe that, then you’ll believe me when I say I’m off to sit in my solid gold chair and smoke some hundred pound notes. Being a billionaire is fun!
What was perhaps most shocking about Jindal’s response was the brazen insanity of it: in the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, with Republican stock still at an all-time low, their response is to stubbornly stick to the tired old mantra of “government is bad, tax cuts are good”. The craziness of such a strategy was perhaps best summed up by conservative commentator David Brooks, who eviscerated it in shockingly extreme language (for a Republican), calling it a “disaster”, “insane” and “a form of nihilism” . Watch it for yourself, it’s really quite damning:
