Zwick: In Praise of Jindal

Jesse Zwick has written an piece for The New Republic arguing that Bobby Jindal deserves more credit for his response to the oil spill:

True conservatives have never known exactly what to think of Bobby Jindal. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Republicans praised Louisiana’s newly elected governor as just the kind of energetic technocrat the state needed to get back on its feet. They were impressed by his youth, his intelligence, and, yes, his background (he’s Indian-American)—and they eagerly started talking him up for higher office. But then came his disastrous response to President Obama’s State of the Union in 2009, after which GOPers mercilessly mocked the governor for the same dorky qualities they once cheered. He no longer looked like presidential material in their eyes—and his mealy-mouthed acceptance of federal stimulus money only boosted the hard-line right’s belief that their hopes in him had been misplaced. And now, with Louisiana facing quite possibly the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history, Jindal has infuriated the Republican base (outside of Louisiana) on an entirely different level.

Constantly jumping in and out of National Guard helicopters and drawing up plans for additional “burrito levees” and “boudin bags” needed to stop the oil slick from flowing further into his state’s marshes, Jindal has quickly mastered the details of the issue. At a press conference in New Orleans in mid-May, the Washington Post reported that “he gave updates on the size of tar balls washing up in Port Fourchon (up to eight inches), the number of sandbags to be air-dropped (1,200) and state money spent to date ($3.7 million). He also provided a weather forecast (‘The winds continue to come out of the southeast, 10 to 15 knots’).”

All that knowledge has forced Jindal to admit that his state is facing a huge crisis—one that merits an equally huge state and federal response. This big government position hasn’t exactly endeared him to his GOP colleagues (who think he’s in league with an alarmist camp of environmental groups that want to villainize Big Oil) or to Democrats (who think his impassioned calls for a greater government response smack of hypocrisy), but Jindal has displayed the kind of smarts and ideological flexibility that we should applaud in our leaders, no matter the party.

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