By the way... just to follow up on Jindal: isn't he really the anti-Sibelius? I mean, his failure to deliver, on the "national stage of Presidential Response" is akin to the fizzle that followed Kathleen Sibelius' nearly as strange, badly received response to President Bush last year after the State of the Union. Sibelius, while still taken seriously (and possibly headed to DC to HHS), pretty much scotched what had been, up to then, a pretty zooming career as "key Democratic rising star", particularly in being seriously floated as running mate material for Obama.
Jindal, of course, has similar "rising star" cred, and seems to have burned it just as thoroughly: yes, he'll still have a career, and he may well still have a run in 2012... but the sense of inevitability, even within the GOP, vanished last night, and I'd say pretty much as soon as he opened his mouth. It's remarkable to me how people whose careers rest on public speaking could be so ill suited - Sibelius' delivery was odd, and Jindal's... well, I guess I'd never paid attention to how he comes across before, which was really mostly just unfortunate.
All of which raises an interesting question, since you don't see people who wind up in key roles - like Obama, or Bill Clinton back before he was president, or Mrs. Clinton - taking on these "official response" segments. And in these days of harsh assessments first, ask questions later, perhaps the thanklessness of the task is itself a setup: even Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have never entirely recovered from their own dismal response to a Bush SOTU speech, either. The moment requires both an intimacy, and a sense of command, that few really have, and I think the bigger story here, maybe, is that the response is better seen as an indicator of how politics, still, is failing us: our politicians seem forever untethered from the lives we lead, the concerns we actually have. The sizzle that turns to fizzle is a fascinating dimension... but it's the artifical sizzle, to begin with, that we rarely question, and perhaps before we set our sights on a "rising star," we'd be better of asking... does that star really shine at all?
Sounds like he's not the anti-Sebellius, but IS Sebellius, GOP-style.
I recommend the Senator watch as lovely parting gifts for these two!
Posted by: Leigh | February 26, 2009 at 11:44 AM