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Monday, March 02, 2009

Tigers fare better than Jindal on national stage

BATON ROUGE - The LSU basketball team had a much better week on national television than did Gov. Bobby Jindal.

The Tigers defeated Florida on Mardi Gras night in prime time on ESPN and edged Kentucky in the Bluegrass on CBS on Saturday afternoon, pushing LSU from No. 18 in the Associated Press poll to No. 12.

Jindal, meanwhile, appeared on national television Tuesday night on other networks to counter President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress concerning his economic stimulus plan.

The first African-American men's basketball coach in LSU history, Trent Johnson, drew raves while the first Indian-American governor in the country blew his lead as the savior of the troubled Republican party.

Jindal looked more like a happy game show contestant than a serious answer to the economic crisis caused by many in his party as he curiously strolled up to the microphone to speak to the country from the Governor's Mansion. Trying to transform an extremely intellectual young man who is extremely quick on his feet into a warm and fuzzy friend backfired. His delivery at times was more reminiscent of Mister Rogers than that of Ronald Reagan, the last savior of the Republican Party.

Johnson is suddenly a national coach of the year candidate after taking a program that was not in nearly as poor shape as the country Obama took over from George W. Bush, but it was pretty bad. LSU was 30-33 overall and 11-21 in the Southeastern Conference in the two years prior to Johnson's arrival. He has LSU at 25-4 and 13-1, which is only the Tigers' best record at this point in a season since 1981 when LSU finished 31-5 and 17-1 and in the Final Four. On Monday Johnson was named as one of 10 finalists for the Jim Phelan national coach of the year award.

Jindal, like many football coaches after an off game or season, may be able to blame his coordinators, who for the most part have been below average and not ready for the job much like Les Miles' former defensive coordinators.

Jindal was inexplicably advised to speak slower before his Super Bowl moment. This was very bad game planning as speaking fast, thinking fast and acting fast are the trademarks of Jindal, whose handling of the hurricanes in Louisiana last summer was his administration's high point and dwarfed the pitiful efforts by the Republican-run national efforts of W and Brownie post-Katrina.

Jindal blew everyone away with his organization, preparation and action before, during and after the storms. He was always the smartest person in the room. He thought on his feet and showed innate knowledge of everything hurricane down to how many dogs they saved on a given day. There wasn't enough time for his coordinators to overprepare and mess things up as was the case leading up to Mardi Gras night.

Why make your guy speak slower to a national audience when the fast talking approach worked in Louisiana? I could see him speaking slower when he's in, say Bunkie, than in the living rooms of New York City!

People in the northeast and midwest and population centers like New York City and Chicago tend to prefer the fast approach. Such a strategy was akin to letting Jarrett Lee pass against Alabama.

It's sad to know that the coaches at LSU have more seasoned media handlers than does the governor.

Do what Miles did, Bobby. Make some staff changes before it's too late. It's not like you're going to keep them anyway after you move to D.C.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glennbeau should stick to sports. His politics are very naive. The economic crisis started when Bill Clinton mandated that people who can't afford homes should get sub prime mortgages ... which balloon into payments they can't afford. Maybe Bush should have stopped the madness, but Democrat Barney Frank's House Financial Services committee did absolutely nothing. Also, Bush inherited a recession that started under Clinton.

The pitiful Katrina response was led by Democrats Nagan and Blanco, not Bush. Remember Glennbeau, it's city, state, then federal, not vice versa, in the response to a disaster.

Why don't you write a blog that compares Clinton's double speak or his chronic adultery or his sell of national secrets to the Chinese to a LSU sports topic?

5:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lest G.G. blame Bush alone for the economy, read the March 3, WSJ: "Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24%, for an overall decline of 25% in 2 months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem.

"From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.

"What goes down will come up -- unless destructive policies interfere with the sources of potential recovery.

"What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance ... Most of his "stimulus" spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.

"His Treasury has been making a similar mistake with its financial bailout plans ... Yet most of Team Obama's ministrations so far have gone toward triage and life support, rather than repair and recovery.

"The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls.

"Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress -- unrebuked by Mr. Obama -- are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery."

Read it all http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123604419092515347.html

7:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If G.G. is an Obamamaniac, he can consider this: the Dow has lost 20%, a Bear market, since Yobama was inaugurated, i.e the fastest decline under a newly elected President in almost 90 years. No, it is not all Bush's fault. Yes, a lot of it is because of Yobama's economic plan, i.e. for socialism.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGJ_.gr_awkY

9:34 AM  

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