Krugman pwns Jindal

Andrew:

This was really too easy. For the record, even the most conservative of fiscal conservatives can see the benefit of government acting to respond to a natural disaster or, as Krugman points out, monitoring volcano eruptions:

Both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.)

I make this banal distinction in The Conservative Soul:

There are public goods that any government must provide. Clean air and safe streets; secure borders; national defense; roads, air traffic control, nature preserves and the like. And one of its core tasks will be to govern effectively during emergencies or natural disasters. In situations like a flood, a hurricane or earthquake, only government can provide certain goods. It should do so efficiently and swiftly and spend a great deal of energy on ensuring that it is always prepared for calamity.

But this too now must be ridiculed. By the man movement conservatives think of as their intellectual. Jesus.

...is surely dead in the flesh, but if he still exists in divine form I think it's pretty clear he's not on the Republicans' side on this one. (and hopefully would never take any sides, but I digress)

Funniest part of Krugman's post:

Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

Yep...that's sadly close to the truth.

Newt: Clap louder

Yglesias:

I think the conservative political establishment’s embrace of Twitter is going to lead to a lot of great blog fodder. For example, Newt Gingrich ten minutes ago:

Bobby jindal got a good national launch out of last night. His story is compelling.his values appeal to most americans

Wonder what a bad launch would have looked like.

Jindal's speech sucked

I share all this disappointment.

Ross judges:

Obama was fantastic - worlds better than his inaugural. He laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda of any Democratic President since LBJ, and did it so smoothly that you'd think he was just selling an incremental center-left pragmatism. I think that he has an acute sense - more acute than most people in Washington, probably - of just how much running room is open in front of him at the moment, and he intends to make the absolute most of it. Burkean temperament or no, this was not a Burkean speech by any stretch: It was the speech of a man seeking to turn a moment of crisis into a domestic-policy revolution, and oozing confidence from every pore along the way. Now all he has to do is find a way to pay for it ...

And Jindal - yeah, he was just as lousy as everybody's saying. As far as themes and messaging went, he basically chose option A on Ambinder's list - government isn't the solution; pork is the problem; etc. - and embedded it in a weak, sing-song delivery that I suspect left even the people who respond favorably to that message cold. Sure, responding to a Presidential speech is almost always a thankless, hopeless job - but shouldn't someone as smart as Jindal have recognized that, and either turned the opportunity down flat, or found a way to sound like something other than a kindergarten teacher delivering familiar GOP talking points? In the event, his speech was the capstone on a lousy night for conservatism: If that's the best the Right has to offer as a rebuttal to Obama, American liberalism is going to be running untouched down the field for years to come.

Update: He was much better on TODAY this morning:



An NRO reader: "THAT was the Jindal I wanted last night. He should never be allowed near a teleprompter again!"