Brainlesser

More on Jindal - or rather, Jindal apologists. Zachary Roth posted a piece questioning the story Bobby Jindal told to illustrate conservative discomfort with the idea that the government could indeed be competent and should work for the public good. Roth's suggestion that something about the story smelled was based on news reports and, largely LACK of news reports on Nexis that would have placed Jindal in NOLA at the time. Zach writes:

But there are several pieces of evidence that suggest this just didn't happen. Nothing, to be sure, that definitively proves the story was made up. But more than enough to declare it highly suspicious. [emphasis mine]

He then comments on Jindal's schedule and the fact that "Jindal listed several anecdotes to illustrate the problem, including one that involved a sheriff, and another about a boat evacuation. But nothing that resembled the Lee story he told Tuesday. " As an example, Roth quotes Jindal saying:

There are thousands of these stories. I talked to a sheriff in an area where they had people with boats that were ready to go in the water and rescue people and they were turned away because they didn't have proof of registration and insurance, they didn't bring the right paperwork. The bureaucracy was just awful.

Josh Marshall reports that Erick Erickson posted an article at RedState refuting Zachary's points. He gets it wrong from the get-go, of course.

Based overwhelmingly on two things - the musings of a Daily Kos diarist and a few Nexis searches that didn’t turn up results (as we all remember, the media got more stories wrong than right when reporting in the heat of the moment in the midst of Katrina) - TPMMuckraker and The Washington Monthly conclude that Governor Bobby Jindal is a liar.

There are two problems immediately apparent: one is that TPM concluded no such thing. Read the TPM quote above. It's very clear - the only "conclusion" was that the story was suspicious. The second problem, as we now know, is that Jindal is, indeed, a liar.

I wonder when Erick Erickson will post a retraction?

Now, here comes the funny part: One of RedState's commenters (the aptly named "falsehood"),disputes Zachary Roth's claim that Jindal had never never told the Lee story before by quoting essentially the same Jindal anecdote that Roth quoted - except from an interview Jindal gave to Rush Limbaugh:

“Contrast that with the bureaucracy. I witnessed the frustration of the local law enforcement officials. At one point, volunteers were rushing in boats, to come and pick up people out of the water. Some bureaucrat decided that they couldn’t go in the water — turned away even sheriff’s deputies because he said they didn’t have the right paper- work. He said if you don’t bring proof of insurance and registration, you can’t go in the water to rescue.”

I'm really at a loss to explain such stupidity.