Gov. Bobby Jindal fights back

It seems the devil is in the details of the telling of this story.

From an article in  The Times-Picayune in Louisiana:

Lee was recounting the boat rescue story to the caller on the line, Teepell said. The phone call was not taking place while the boats were attempting the rescue operation, but some days afterward, Teepell said.

The above reference to Teepell is Governor Jindal's Chief of Staff, Timmy Teepell, who states the event to which the Governor refers did not happen while the boats were attempting to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Governor Jindal's remarks after President Obama's speech gave listeners the impression that he was there, at Sheriff Lee's office, in the midst of the rescue operations, possibly poorly chosen words to recount the tale.

Whatever the reason for Governor Jindal's remarks, he was not in place in the way his remarks on Tuesday seemed to indicate, during the rescue efforts.

Good stuff Rene

People who are experts on memory will say that incidents often get put together in a way which is not true.

The only reason that the story is important, that is, has any significance and meaning,  is that if Jindal lied, then he couldn't claim the role of "hands-on" governor, and, secondly, that he was willing to lie to misrepresent himself, which would be a very big point against him, a sign of a major character flaw.

If Jindal lied, he would be like Hillary Clinton whose TwilightZone-esque recounting of an event that never happened revealed the extent to which she needed to prop up her own image.

And, then there is that second inference to be made: that she was in the habit of exaggerating and reinterpreting the events of her life to maintain her position on her own pedestal..

Instead of the accounts of Hillary's wild imagination from the likes of Sinbad, a comedian with her on her mythical confrontation with the bad guys of Serbia, what we really have here in the video of the sheriff is testimony that Jindal spoke the truth about his hands-on role in the hurricane.

Whether Jindal's recollection is absolutely correct or not, a more than adequate testimony that Jindal is a hands-on problem solver, the real meaning of his statement, could not be asked for.

So, if the details of Jindal's story are not correct, which has not been proven beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt, the sheriff's testimony does resolve the truth about Jindal, the man and his capacity as a leader.

That renders the implication of Karen Hatter's original story moot.

I am personally convinced that Jindal got it right, and the staffer screwed up. Your point about the paper is well taken. No Standing is the operational phrase of the day.

Hey, I wanted to clean up some of those contorted sentences of mine and somebody liked my post, recommended it and now I can't change it.

 You all seem to have understood it, though.

Some responses on another one of these slanderous stories:

Why else would a Democrat Sheriff whole-heartedly support a Republican candidate for Governor?

A Louisiana lawman lying to make political points?

It would never happen in a million years.

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.

First, Jindal's story has Lee railing against the red-tape in the midst of the crisis. But Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, told CNN he didn't find out about the license and registration issue until about seven days after the incident.

Here's Lee talking to Larry King (via Nexis) a week or so after Katrina:

I fully believe that when then matter is looked into, we tried to get some boats in the water early on. When I realized that we had a problem, I was the one that made the call in WWO (UNINTELLIGIBLE) radio if there was anybody with a boat to come to a place so that we can get the boats in the water because I was around when -- the other big hurricanes, and most of the rescue done early on were individual fisherman, recreational fisherman that had boats that went in the water. Those boats where not allowed to get into the water when they were needed and I just found out about seven days later one of the reason boats couldn't get in was they didn't have enough life preservers and some of them didn't have proof of insurance. And I'm sure that there's a FEMA regulation that says that. But when a storm of this magnitude hits, you through those regulations out the window and you do what you have to do and start saving lives. (our itals)

It's within the realm of possibility, just, that Lee and Jindal are talking about two separate incidents. But from the way the details line up, it's reasonable to assume they're the same.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Daily Kos diarist xgz assembled a slew of additional evidence suggesting that Jindal took some serious dramatic license, at best. To summarize:

According to numerous reports, Harry Lee did not leave the affected area of New Orleans during the crisis. But there is no reported evidence of Jindal having set foot in the area during the period when people were still stranded on roofs -- which, based on a review of news stories from the time, was only until September 3 at the very latest. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests he did not...

When the storm made landfall on August 29, Jindal was on a foreign trip. His family was evacuated to his parents' house in Baton Rouge, and when he returned, he went straight there to join them. In a September 1st CNN interview given from Baton Rouge, Jindal talked about taking an aerial tour of the disaster area, but didn't mention anything about having been on the ground personally. We've reviewed Nexis and other sources, and can find no news reports putting Jindal on the ground in the affected area during the few days after Katrina struck when people might still have needed boats to rescue them from rooftops.

Schedule issues aside, it's also noticeable that Jindal has talked or written several times before about the problems of excessive red tape during Katrina, but has never told this story.

On September 8, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Jindal detailing how "[i]n Katrina's wake, red tape too often trumped common sense." 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. You'd think that would have been his lead example.

And in 2008, Jindal told Human Events:

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.

The implication here is that Jindal talked to the sheriff after the fact, not that he was in his office during the moment of crisis.

As we said, none of this settles the question definitively. But it certainly raises a whole lot of questions about Jindal's tale. Those questions were enough for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, in a short segment last night on the controversy, to conclude that the story is "apparently not true."

Of course, Harry Lee could put this to rest once and for all. But he died in 2007.

We called Jindal's office, asking for any information that might help establish the story's veracity. They haven't gotten back to us.

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.

First, Jindal's story has Lee railing against the red-tape in the midst of the crisis. But Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, told CNN he didn't find out about the license and registration issue until about seven days after the incident.

Here's Lee talking to Larry King (via Nexis) a week or so after Katrina:

I fully believe that when then matter is looked into, we tried to get some boats in the water early on. When I realized that we had a problem, I was the one that made the call in WWO (UNINTELLIGIBLE) radio if there was anybody with a boat to come to a place so that we can get the boats in the water because I was around when -- the other big hurricanes, and most of the rescue done early on were individual fisherman, recreational fisherman that had boats that went in the water. Those boats where not allowed to get into the water when they were needed and I just found out about seven days later one of the reason boats couldn't get in was they didn't have enough life preservers and some of them didn't have proof of insurance. And I'm sure that there's a FEMA regulation that says that. But when a storm of this magnitude hits, you through those regulations out the window and you do what you have to do and start saving lives. (our itals)

It's within the realm of possibility, just, that Lee and Jindal are talking about two separate incidents. But from the way the details line up, it's reasonable to assume they're the same.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Daily Kos diarist xgz assembled a slew of additional evidence suggesting that Jindal took some serious dramatic license, at best. To summarize:

According to numerous reports, Harry Lee did not leave the affected area of New Orleans during the crisis. But there is no reported evidence of Jindal having set foot in the area during the period when people were still stranded on roofs -- which, based on a review of news stories from the time, was only until September 3 at the very latest. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests he did not...

When the storm made landfall on August 29, Jindal was on a foreign trip. His family was evacuated to his parents' house in Baton Rouge, and when he returned, he went straight there to join them. In a September 1st CNN interview given from Baton Rouge, Jindal talked about taking an aerial tour of the disaster area, but didn't mention anything about having been on the ground personally. We've reviewed Nexis and other sources, and can find no news reports putting Jindal on the ground in the affected area during the few days after Katrina struck when people might still have needed boats to rescue them from rooftops.

Schedule issues aside, it's also noticeable that Jindal has talked or written several times before about the problems of excessive red tape during Katrina, but has never told this story.

On September 8, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Jindal detailing how "[i]n Katrina's wake, red tape too often trumped common sense." 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. You'd think that would have been his lead example.

And in 2008, Jindal told Human Events:

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.

The implication here is that Jindal talked to the sheriff after the fact, not that he was in his office during the moment of crisis.

As we said, none of this settles the question definitively. But it certainly raises a whole lot of questions about Jindal's tale. Those questions were enough for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, in a short segment last night on the controversy, to conclude that the story is "apparently not true."

Of course, Harry Lee could put this to rest once and for all. But he died in 2007.

We called Jindal's office, asking for any information that might help establish the story's veracity. They haven't gotten back to us.