Jumping on Jindal

Among other Change that Barack Obama advocates is a return to civility in American politics, but this week the media and the politicians who feed it failed to get the memo in piling on Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal for his rebuttal to the President's Congressional speech.

Ineffectual and lame (my word) as it was, the outpouring of invective over Jindal's effort has prompted both the New York Times and Washington Post today to treat it as an event in itself.

"Governor Jindal, Rising G.O.P. Star, Plummets After Speech" is the Times headline as Howard Kurtz in the Post asks, "How Bad Was Jindal?"

Nobody, except the Republican National Committee, asked the governor to expose himself by following the most gifted orator of our time, but there is a troubling undertone to the personal nature of the barrage of criticism and ridicule.

Chris Matthews, caught by an open mic muttering "Oh God" as Jindal appeared, is now covering his aspirating with the claim that his reaction was to the scene in the Governor's mansion, not over a dark-skinned young man looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

The Jindal-bashing has been bipartisan. "Conservative commentators," the Times notes, "were among the harshest critics, calling Mr. Jindal’s delivery animatronic, his prose 'cheesy' and his message--that federal spending is not the answer to the nation’s economic problems--uninspired."

Be that as it may, the Palinization of Bobby Jindal is both premature and unhealthy for the body politic. Wrong as he may be, Jindal is no airhead. On "Meet the Press" recently, the former Rhodes scholar came off as a serious man and, in the climate that Barack Obama is trying to recreate in American political discourse, dumping on him does not advance the cause.