Why was Governor Bobby Jindal’s response to President Obama on Tuesday night so bad?  Both the content and the delivery were, in plain words, awful.  Here it is on YouTube:  http://tinyurl.com/art66e.  But don’t watch it, unless you want to know how not to speak on television, how not to construct a logical presentation, and how not to quote your father when talking to the American people.  There are a myriad better ways to spend 12 minutes of your life than watching Governor Jindal. 

Jindal began with a nod to President Obama’s election as the first African-American president and all that that signifies, but he went on so long that it became patronizing.  He told an inane story about hurricane Katrina, and used that as a way to talk about the Republican idea that Americans don’t need government to help them solve their problems.  “Americans can do anything,” he said, quote his father.  He repeated this quote a half-dozen times during the remainder of the speech, sounding more and more like Gomer Pyle and less and less like a credible future presidential candidate. 

Of course, the (Republican) government’s response to Katrina was criminally bad, but Jindal was talking out of both sides of his mouth, because he and his state government were busy spending billions of Federal taxpayers’ money on rebuilding New Orleans even as he spoke.  

He then went on to say that Republicans want everyone to have access to affordable health care, but that government is not the solution.  This is an argument based on a non sequitur, and one that simply sidesteps several critical issues.  For example, private enterprise has built the jury-rigged, outrageously expensive solution we have today.  We’ve tried it.  It has brought us to our current impasse, with even the insurers themselves now calling for the Federal government to help find a remedy. 

And Jindal simply ignores the inconvenient fact that President Obama’s proposed solution does involve the insurers rather than relying exclusively on the Federal government.  No one is proposing that the government is the answer.  But government has to play a role, because private enterprise has proven itself unable to come up with a solution despite having years to do so, enormous public pressure to improve, and real – and often criminal – examples of how they have failed in their own self-described mission to protect Americans against the financial impact of catastrophic illnesses.  

Jindal then talked about spending and the economic mess we’re in.  He called for less government spending, echoing President Hoover, who cut spending at the beginning of the Depression, thus ensuring that it would last longer and cut much deeper than it otherwise would have.  Thank goodness he’s not in charge of anything except Louisiana.  I see that he's taking all but about one percent of the Federal bailout money coming to his state. 

What about his delivery?  His smile was insincere; it didn’t reach his eyes, which were focused relentlessly on the camera and thus on us, the hapless viewers.  He read the teleprompter in an un-authoritative, sing-song voice that lacked conviction, energy, and interest.  His vocal tones were constantly rising, further undercutting his authority.  His gestures were out of synch with his words, making him look fake.  (I talk more about this in Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma.)  Finally, he tipped his head slightly to one side, in what I call the Mr. Rogers gesture, making him look even less authoritative.  The combination gave the effect of a small boy delivering the Republican response.  It was childish in the bad sense of the word.  Not a good night for Governor Jindal or the Republicans.