Bobby Jindal: George Bush Redux in Louisiana

[The Night Owl]

From Talk to Action:

Bobby Jindal: George Bush Redux in Louisiana
By Barbara Forrest

The national mainstream media have so far not caught on to the real Bobby Jindal, although after his poor performance in his high-profile rebuttal to Barack Obama's February 24, 2009, address to Congress, that may be changing. The media now have an opportunity - and an obligation to the American people - to explain who he really is. His rebuttal was certainly evidence that Jindal is not ready for prime time, much less ready to be considered presidential material. However, his true identity as a Religious Right ideologue has yet to receive the national media exposure that it deserves. A central piece of evidence for Jindal's reactionary religious views - which he has very openly integrated into both his political persona and his policy decisions as governor - is the fact that Louisiana has a new creationist law on the books, and Jindal was the lynchpin in its passage. Hopefully, the national mainstream media will do their homework this time. With respect to policies that directly affect the quality of life, Jindal is running Louisiana the way George W. Bush ran the country.

Louisiana is now being boycotted by a major scientific society, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), directly in response to Jindal's signing the creationist "Louisiana Science Education Act" (LSEA) in June 2008. The LSEA allows public school science teachers to use creationist teaching materials. (See "The Discovery Institute, the LA Family Forum, and the `LA Science Education Act'"). The SICB sent a letter to Jindal on February 5, 2009, telling him that "The Executive Committee voted to hold the 2011 meeting in Salt Lake City in large part because of legislation . . . you signed into law in June 2008." Just as Jindal had ignored appeals for his veto of the bill, he ignored the SICB's letter -- until the news hit the state and national media, prompting his spokesman Kyle Plotkin to respond to the boycott: "That's too bad. New Orleans is a first-class city for a convention."

Katie Couric weighed in on the boycott at CBS. The New York Times, which urged Jindal to veto the bill last year in a hard hitting editorial, also reported on it.

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http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/2/28/221538/087/Front_Page/Bobby_Jindal_George_Bush_Redux_in_Louisiana