Matthews On 'Stagecraft'

Aunt Blabby (aka Chris Matthews) has gone and done it again!
Blabby's Big Mouth, blatant partisanship, huge ego and bad manners have once again made him the Poster Boy for Out-of-Control Liberalism.
Here's the story from the Associated Press:
MSNBC's Chris Matthews said he was surprised by the "peculiar stagecraft" of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's response to President Barack Obama's speech to Congress, leading him to quietly say "Oh God" as Jindal approached a microphone.
The remark inspired a brief Internet guessing game about who had said it and questions about whether someone at MSNBC was mocking the Republican governor.
Matthews' barely audible "Oh God" appeared to be a classic case of someone talking on TV without realizing their microphone was on, and potentially embarrassing to a network many Republicans already regard with suspicion because of left-leaning talk shows by Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.
"I was taken aback by that peculiar stagecraft, the walking from somewhere in the back of this narrow hall, the winding staircase looming there, the odd antibellum look of the scene," Matthews said in a script for his "Hardball" show on Wednesday. "Was this some mimicking of a president walking along the state floor to the East Room?"
Matthews said he wasn't referring to Jindal himself, or anything he expected the governor to say.
A clip of the "Oh God" remark quickly made the Internet rounds. Before it was known that Matthews had said it, the Huffington Post asked readers to guess who it was and nearly 7,000 people responded: 32 percent had guessed Matthews, 35 percent said it was Olbermann, his co-anchor, 15 percent said it was an MSNBC camera operator and 18 percent thought it was a producer.
It's not the first time Matthews' mouth has gotten him noticed for the wrong reasons. He was ridiculed by some Republicans for saying he "felt this thrill going up my leg" during an Obama speech, but later defended the remark as an objective look at Obama's ability to inspire through his speeches.
After some protests by women's groups, Matthews said he was wrong last year to say that the reason Hillary Clinton was a senator and candidate for president "is that her husband messed around."
So the Blabberino didn't like the "peculiar stagecraft."
But Matthews himself is the living, walking embodiment of "peculiar stagecraft."
He's a rumpled, loud, obnoxious goofy-looking guy who can't seem to keep his mouth shut and can't stop making an ass of himself.
MSNBC and NBC should have canned this clown years ago!

Jindal: The Antidote?

From Marina Jimenez in Toronto's Globe and Mail:

He is the Republican party's wunderkind. His family's triumph-over-adversity narrative is nearly as powerful as that of U.S. President Barack Obama's. And now, Bobby Jindal, the 37-year-old Governor of Louisiana, is . . . becoming a household name — [launched] onto the national platform on prime-time television . . . as the Republican party's rebuttal to the President's address to Congress.
It's a moment in history that's being compared to the keynote address a then-unknown Mr. Obama delivered in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
And like Mr. Obama, Mr. Jindal's political star is on the rise — as are the odds of a run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. . . .

Born Piyush Jindal in Baton Rouge, La., Mr. Jindal adopted the name Bobby as a child, apparently after the character in the Brady Bunch, according to his family.
His parents immigrated from the Punjab to the United States so that his mother, pregnant with him at the time, could continue her graduate work in nuclear physics. His father, an engineer, was one of nine children from a poor rural family in Indian Punjab.
A graduate of Brown University, Mr. Jindal was a Rhodes Scholar and went on to work for the elite consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
Born a Hindu, he converted to Roman Catholicism in high school, and also has links to Baptist and Pentecostal congregations. At 25, he was named secretary of Louisiana's department of health. Mr. Jindal ran for governor in 2003 and lost. The following year he was elected to Congress, and in 2007, made a successful bid for governor. He and his wife Supriya Jolly have three young children.
He is widely considered to be an effective leader, his response to last fall's Hurricane Gustav praised for its efficiency. His biggest challenge has been to deal with a legislature that voted to more than double its take-home pay from $16,800 to $37,500.
Aside from their visible minority backgrounds and young families, Mr. Obama and Mr. Jindal differ markedly in style and substance.
While Mr. Obama projects a relaxed demeanour and had an unconventional upbringing, Mr. Jindal is meticulous, and very conservative. His campaign platform centred on a promise to cut taxes, ban abortion and introduce ethics reform. He opposes embryonic stem cell research and same-sex marriage.
Mr. Jindal has travelled quite a bit outside the state raising funds and is routinely named as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. He hasn't officially declared his interest — nor has he ruled it out. His unofficial campaign just received an unprecedented boost, a prime-time television appearance that may catapult him ahead of his rivals.

Thanks But 'No Thanks?'

From Melinda Deslatte of the Associated Press:
A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.
Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.
"My concern is there's going to be commitments attached to it that are a mile long," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who considered rejecting some of the money but decided Wednesday to accept it. "We need the freedom to pick and choose. And we need the freedom to say 'No thanks.'"