Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker says Gov. Bobby Jindal is the Anderson Cooper of politics.' Skipping a prime-time appearance at the Republican National Convention for the second time in four years was likely no sweat off of Gov. Bobby Jindal's back, according to Washington Post writer Kathleen Parker, who notes in a widely syndicated column that Jindal's swift shift to hurricane leader in Louisiana "proffers an opportunity for Jindal to do what he does best work."
The WaPo writer describes Jindal as a "serious thinker" who would rather take charge of what many would consider a "logistical nightmare," heading the response effort to natural disasters that plague our state year after year:
True enough, hurricanes and other disasters help organize one's priorities. If by politics, Jindal means he doesn't have time for small talk or even stemwinders, he's right as rain. Based on my own observations and interviews with Jindal, no one less enjoys the glad-handing required of politicians than Jindal. He's far too serious a thinker and his multitasking attention span too like a hummingbird's to long enjoy the silky, languorous, storytelling tempo of, say, his neighbor and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.
Even though most Americans know Jindal only through his disastrous response to President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress in 2009, for which Jindal had been over-prepped to appear "normal," he became governor in large part because of his rolled-sleeves, rule-breaking approach to the post-Katrina recovery.
He was a bull in a china cabinet full of precious bureaucrats, most of whom got so tangled up in red tape they couldn't act. Jindal, whose physical stature and boyish looks condemn him to a lifetime of perpetual youth, plowed through the mud and misery like a Marine-turned-Avatar. Louisiana's mostly Democratic sheriffs, who hold the real power in the parishes, hoisted their boy wonder above the storm surge and into the mansion in Baton Rouge. The Sheriffs' Association's endorsement is pure gold in Louisiana politics.
Read the full column here.