Who IS Bobby Jindal, Really?

Who IS Bobby Jindal?


The questions about Republican gubernatorial candidate Congressman Piyush “Bobby” Jindal just keep piling up, with no clear answers anywhere in sight for the foreseeable future. Jindal’s supporters, have taken the standard Republican response to any questioning of the integrity of their candidate—smear and insult; because of course, in their minds, nothing says “logic” like calling honest questions “a liberal smear campaign’ while dodging facts.
Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh have done their jobs beautifully, haven’t they?
Recently, while cruising the internet looking for information on “Bobby”, I had the great pleasure of discovering the following website: www.bobbyjindalisgood.com. Purporting to be a site to help promote the Congressman’s candidacy as well as to raise awareness (and money), at first I thought, this has to be a spoof website, because surely this can’t be for real.
Take, for example, the LA Revolution campaign:
On Monday, May 7, we went on "The Jim Engster Show" and announced the commencement of a Louisiana Revolution. Join us as we usher in a new era of dynamic leadership and sweeping change in the Pelican State. Join the Revolution by supporting Bobby Jindal and ensuring that he becomes the next Governor of Louisiana. But Bobby Jindal's election is only the beginning..
On this same page are photographs of children wearing shirts that proclaim “LA Revolution;” which is obviously a play on La Revolucion, a slogan from the 1960’s. The T-shirts have the Congressman’s face superimposed on the famous old photograph of Che Guevara, which graced posters and T-shirts back in the days of opposition to the Vietnam War.
Remember Che Guevara?
From Robert Leckie’s The Wars of America:

Among the Communists who fled Guatemala was an Argentine physician named Ernesto (“Che”) Guevara, who later joined forces with a bearded young Revolutionary named Fidel Castro. In 1956, accompanied by ten other bearded rebels, they landed in Cuba’s Oriente Province and began to rally around them the forces that eventually overcame the cruel and corrupt Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

Am I the only person who finds it odd that a modern day Republican politician has allowed his supporters to plagiarize the symbol and slogan of a notorious Communist revolutionary? One who was an avowed atheist and despised religion (more on that later)?
Louisianans frequently joke that our state is a ‘banana republic,’ a ‘third world country,’ and other such jokes—but we also don’t really take that seriously.
Apparently, Jindal’s supporters do, and believe that taking on the symbols of an avowed enemy of the United States democracy will somehow help them take over our ‘banana republic.’
Of course, it is entirely possible, as I stated before, that this site is not for real; it could just be a large joke, and does not have the Congressman’s endorsement.
And if it does have the Congressman’s endorsement, one has to ask, does the Congressman have no idea who Che Guevara was? Surely, any Republican running for a public office would know better than to use the symbolism of a Communist revolutionary. Especially when one takes into consideration that the proudest achievement the Republicans claim is that their great Ronald Reagan brought down Communism.
Does Robert M. Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee, aware of this?
It is, in fact, no different than trying to add the hammer and sickle to the Pelican Flag.
And if, indeed, the Congressman does not know who Guevara was, this lack of knowledge of American—and world—history does not bode well for his possible gubernatorial term.
And while on the subject of religion…Congressman Jindal has stated for the record, over and over again, his deep and abiding Catholic faith. It is considered impolite to question someone’s faith; but when said person makes public statement after public statement about said faith, it becomes impolitic not to wonder, especially when said person make the following statement on a radio interview:

“Good Christians pray to God, not to saints.”

What?
I am not a Catholic, but even I know that one of the basic doctrines of the Catholic religion, dating back over a thousand years, is praying to the saints. Perhaps the Congressman needs, not only a history book to review, but to sit down and have a long talk with his priest…I know that if I were a Catholic what my reaction to the Congressman’s statement would be. That statement basically says that the vast majority of Catholics are NOT good Christians!
But that vast majority of Catholics, I would daresay, have never participated in an ‘exorcism,’ a medieval ritual the Church now pretty much disavows.
So, there you have it. Congressman Bobby Jindal, who wants to be governor of Louisiana, does not understand his own religion, and thinks Che Guevara, apparently, is a role model for his campaign.
What a sad statement on the condition of the Louisiana public education system.