Well, Gee, Bobby.

bobbyjindal

Adam on Jindal’s awful, awful response:

The press has, for some time, been running with the idea that Bobby Jindal is the GOP’s Obama. It’s unclear what prompts the comparison between the two other than that they are both young, brown, Ivy League-educated, and beloved by their respective bases. But it’s a comparison that the monochromatic Republican Party, anxious to show its inclusiveness, has been happy to accept. That makes it no less inane, and no less transparent an attempt to put a nonwhite face on an increasingly white party.

Jindal and Obama could not be more different, and the contrasts begin but don’t end with the fact that one of them changed his name to fit in while the other carried his daddy’s “funny” African moniker all the way to the White House. Last night, the differences were clear: Where Jindal was awkward, Obama was confident. Obama has mastered his voice, Jindal sounded like he didn’t know how to give a speech. Obama had mastered a variety of tones and cadences early in his career, Jindal offered a forced folksiness to a sing-song tune. But perhaps the most telling part of Jindal’s response was his extended introduction of his family history. Until now, the GOP has allowed the press to make the Obama comparisons, last night, Jindal tried to make one himself, an act that was inadvertently self-diminishing.

The whole thing is worth quoting, but you should go over to TAPPED and read it.

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  • ladyfresshh

    Can i call him piyush?

    unfortunately i missed his speech, i almost missed obama’s as well

    it seems piyush and steele are coming across as puppets which is sad because i believe in balance and puppets will not balance out an intelligent president and highly motivated dem base

  • ladyfresshh

    Can i call him piyush?

    unfortunately i missed his speech, i almost missed obama’s as well

    it seems piyush and steele are coming across as puppets which is sad because i believe in balance and puppets will not balance out an intelligent president and highly motivated dem base

  • Winslowalrob

    What a retarded article. Changing one’s name = lack of political savvy? And way to treat Africa like one country American Prospect. Classy! The reason Jindal is nothing like Obama is because Jindal is a Republican, not because of “identity”.

  • thinking of a name

    This is a good article. I felt the same way when I heard Jindal’s response. It was as if I was watching Superman, and they introduced the anti-Superman, you know he looks like Superman and has all the powers of Superman but uses them for evil. Someone who is able to fight Superman on Superman’s ground and acts as a leveling factor to the bad guys. I kid you not, that is all I kept thinking during the speech.

    Now I am not saying that Jindal is a tool of evil in the Republican Party used to level the playing ground against the Democrats, but I sure couldn’t get that picture out of my head. I understand why you do that in marketing products. You have a Tevin Campbell, so you get an Usher and you have an Usher so you get a Mario or you have a Barbie so you get a Bratz, but these are the ideologies that run the nation through the highest office, I am hoping that people are not being that short sighted. I mean is non-white the new black?

  • thinking of a name

    This is a good article. I felt the same way when I heard Jindal’s response. It was as if I was watching Superman, and they introduced the anti-Superman, you know he looks like Superman and has all the powers of Superman but uses them for evil. Someone who is able to fight Superman on Superman’s ground and acts as a leveling factor to the bad guys. I kid you not, that is all I kept thinking during the speech.

    Now I am not saying that Jindal is a tool of evil in the Republican Party used to level the playing ground against the Democrats, but I sure couldn’t get that picture out of my head. I understand why you do that in marketing products. You have a Tevin Campbell, so you get an Usher and you have an Usher so you get a Mario or you have a Barbie so you get a Bratz, but these are the ideologies that run the nation through the highest office, I am hoping that people are not being that short sighted. I mean is non-white the new black?

  • Scott

    Gee and I thought that Barry was Obama’s daddy’s name. I guess The Prospect missed that detail in their rush to trash Jindal. I guess Obama decided to change it when he rediscovered his heritage just like Gerald Rivera, I mean Geraldo Rivera.

  • Winslow, Looks like we went as far as the threaded comments would let us go.

    Okay, I think I understand the point you’re trying to make. This, especially:

    instead of trying to look at Jindal as an individual failure, we tie his failure to his mythical ‘white-washing’, while proud black brothas like Obama (a half-white half-black Hawaiian raised by his white family) are successful politicians because they are ‘unapologetically’ black (whatever the hell that means). It sounds like a bunch of retarded ethnic cheerleading, which we should just leave to the Republicans who are much less subtle about it.

    I guess the question is, are you a better person if you stay true to your “roots?” Not necessarily. And I think if there’s one thing the Obama candidacy and subsequent presidency has done, it’s fuzzed the line of race, ethnicity, and identity. No one is just one thing or another, and Jindal certainly isn’t just some “coconut” (I went to school with Indian and Filipino kids, and I’ve definitely heard that term a lot).

    I still think that Adam is mostly right when he writes: “But perhaps the most telling part of Jindal’s response was his extended introduction of his family history. Until now, the GOP has allowed the press to make the Obama comparisons, last night, Jindal tried to make one himself, an act that was inadvertently self-diminishing.”

    Not because Jindal is not as cool as Obama just because he’s different (he isn’t as cool as Obama, but who is?); but because he’s attempted to capitalize on the brown-man/child-of-immigrants meme, as if that’s the sum total of Obama’s mojo. It just seems really blatant to me. Republicans can’t win on policy right now. McCain and Palin tried to scare us, and when that failed, they decided to have Jindal and Steele try to win us over with identity politics and outdated hip hop slang.

    I do concede that Jindal’s comparison may not have been self-diminishing, exactly. And Obama’s life experience doesn’t necessarily make him a better, more authentic person than Jindal.