Last week, Gov. Bobby Jindal spoke at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and, as usual, joined other Republican speakers in attacking the Obama administration.
Louisianans should care about what our governor is doing in the CPAC and be wary of his rhetoric. It is not for our interest, but rather for the special interest.
In a speech where Jindal called President Barack Obama the most liberal president with a weak foreign policy who seeks to downsize the military, he ignored that Eisenhower also sought to downsize the military and didn’t act when the Soviets invaded Hungary.
Jindal’s most highlighted statement during the speech was made when he claimed that Obama has launched an “assault on the American Dream” and religious freedom.
I personally am not a supporter of Obama and have strong opinions on why I chose to not vote for him both times, but Jindal’s subjective, crowd-pleasing statements are childish and serve to downgrade legitimate grievances people have with Obama to partisan talking points.
Jindal goes so far as to say Obama’s definition of the American Dream is dependence on government.
If that is the case, then why in 2010 did Obama give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to investor legend Warren Buffett? Obama’s speech highlighted Buffett’s business honesty and integrity as not only moral but good for the economy.
Another of Jindal’s major critiques of Obama centered on the deficit and debt. This is an easy and cheap attack on Obama. After you pass freshman-level economic courses, you will learn the primary source of debt in the United States generally comes from recessions. Recessions are expensive, and America’s last one — the greatest and most destructive recession since the 1930s — happened under the watchful eyes of the George W. Bush administration.
The most insulting thing Jindal claimed was that Obama is the worst president in his lifetime. I would suggest Jindal take a look at the Bush administration, but he probably would ignore its failures since he was once part of it.
When Bush took office in 2001, the United States had a surplus of $236 billion. When Obama took office in 2009, Bush left him a deficit of $1.4 trillion, two wars, a health care crisis, a deep economic recession and a financial crisis.
Another thing Jindal neglected to mention was that Bush didn’t do anything in regard to Russia’s full scale war against Georgia, which is likely what encouraged Russia’s action in Crimea more than some theoretical view that Putin felt Obama was weak.
Jindal is a mouthpiece for the Christian Right and big business, yet he offers nothing new except attempts to up the ante with anti-Obama rhetoric.
I would advise Jindal that the truth is always enough in regard to criticizing Obama. There is no need to mislead people and drum up GOP talking points and rhetoric.
The irony is that if Jindal really cared about education, he would try to lift people out of poverty instead of ignoring those stuck in it. Republicans like Jindal are destroying the American Dream by making its achievement more and more exclusive instead of a common journey in any American’s life.
Joshua Hajiakbarifini is a 24-year-old political science and economics senior from Baton Rouge.