Would you take medical advice from this man?

Filed in National by on February 27, 2009

Golly gee wilickers, Bobby Jindal sure has some strange ideas about how medicine works.

He’s also extremely careful and calculated, personality traits that come out during even the most mundane activities, like taking pills. Jindal, who has a background in biology, medicine and public policy, never follows the directions on prescription medicines. “I always just take half the dose,” he says. “I’m very cautious.”

Cautious, in Jindal’s book, means only killing half the bacteria when he’s got an infection. Taking on the other half might… wait, f*** it, this guy’s CRAZY! What? This guy has a background in medicine? What? He’s not even remotely rational in his own areas of supposed expertise.

And yeah, that pretty much explains Lobby Bobby Jindal’s approach to the economic recession, also. “Let’s only fix half the problem, and let the rest spiral out of control! Because we’re cautious, see?”

Fun tidbits from the article:

The branding of Bobby Jindal started in 1996, when former Gov. Mike Foster plucked his Republican protégé out of virtual obscurity—Jindal was contemplating a career in law or medicine—and appointed him secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals. Foster had been hearing good things about Jindal from members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation who had reviewed a Medicaid proposal written by the young go-getter. He was only 24. Two years later, which is the average amount of time Jindal has spent doing anything since entering public life, he was appointed by members of Congress to be executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare.

After a year of working with the feds, Foster lured Jindal back to Louisiana in 1999 and made him president of the University of Louisiana System. Word of Jindal’s work traveled through upper circles again, this time reaching the White House. In 2001, President Bush tapped Jindal to be assistant secretary for planning and evaluation of Health and Human Services.

Oh, so Jindal’s made a career of being ill-informed and underprepared. Now it all makes sense. This is the natural career path of the Young Bush Republican – get politically promoted without accomplishing anything until finally you can run for president.

There are two votes in particular where Jindal supported killing ethics investigations related to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

So much for “Mr. Ethics”.

He currently supports a veto override if Bush tries to kill a water bill for Louisiana, voted in favor of a Democrat-heavy farm bill, endorsed the populist minimum-wage hike and rejected a Bush-backed trade bill early in his congressional career. “I’m happy to agree with my party when they’re right,” Jindal says. “But party doesn’t come first.”

Still, Jindal has supported billions in funding for the war in Iraq, and he has also been known to vote against his own measures to stay in step with the GOP. In June, Jindal attached an amendment to an interior appropriations bill offering an extra $2.5 million for the Gulf of Mexico Program, which was short on money for research. The following day, Jindal joined the Republican House delegation in voting against the bill that contained his amendment. “I was pleased to get the attention for the issue and the funding, but I couldn’t support the overall bill because of its pork-barrel spending,” Jindal explains.

Like many Republicans, Bobby defines “pork barrell spending” as “spending which does not further my future electoral prospects”. Except when KBR spends billions to give our troops diseases; that’s how he and the GOP define “patriotism”.

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About the Author ()

X Stryker is also the proprietor of the currently-dormant poll analysis blog Election Inspection.

Comments (19)

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  1. pandora says:

    Jindal needs to stop thinking about exorcisms and start focusing on resurrections.

  2. xstryker says:

    Pandora scores!

  3. jason330 says:

    I couldn’t read past the first blockquote because a little voice in my head kept yelling, “WTF!”

  4. nemski says:

    I wonder when the radicals over at DP will move Jindal from front and center of their masthead.

  5. xstryker says:

    I know, Jason! I was trying to type something thoughtfully satirical in response, but had to stop mid-sentence, as you can see above. I mean… WTF??? For real?

  6. Unstable Isotope says:

    “Cautious” and “makes up his own directions for taking medicine” do not belong in the same sentence. I can tell the Jindal is one of those conservatives who is a true believer and he buys his own hype.

  7. Unstable Isotope says:

    “Background in medicine” is one of those phrases invoked in politics that raises alarms in my head. In my experience, a phrase like that generally means he’s a self-styled expert, not a physician or nurse. Self-styled experts can be scarily wrong (because they don’t know what they don’t know).

  8. pandora says:

    Dosage directions exist for a purpose, and a person who claims to have a background in medicine (what does that mean???) should know better. Would he instruct his childrens’ pediatrician to administer only half an immunization?

  9. pandora says:

    Okay, I looked up Jindal’s degrees and here’s what I found…

    He attended public school at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. Following high school, Jindal attended Brown University, graduating with honors in biology and public policy. Although he had thought of a career in medicine or law and was accepted by Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School, he chose to pursue a political career. He received a master’s degree in political science from New College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar.

    So… does a background in medicine refer to the fact that he considered attending medical school?

  10. anonone says:

    If you only take half a birth control pill, you only need half an abortion.

  11. pandora says:

    LOL! Bet, when he gets to be a certain age, Jindal won’t cut his Viagra dose in half!

  12. Unstable Isotope says:

    I can’t believe a creationist could graduate with honors in a degree in biology. Without evolution, modern biology doesn’t exist.

  13. More silliness.

    Biology is a core requirement for a pre med syllabus. It is also a large portion of the MCAT exam.

    Being cautious about medicine is not a serious flaw or anything dangerous and in the end it affects only him so why do you care? Gov Jindal has proposed a detailed and workable plan to save a medical plan called Medicaid, read it and you will learn something.

    The pettiness and jealousy on this blog is quite amazing and sad.

    My guess is you fear Jindal because he is much smarter then Obama.

  14. Unstable Isotope says:

    My guess is you fear Jindal because he is much smarter then Obama.

    LOL!!!!

    Shorter Protack: Jump right into that basket!

  15. pandora says:

    An undergraduate degree in biology is not a background in medicine. My brother is a biologist, immuno geneticist, and when people ask him medical questions he clearly states he is not a medical doctor.

    Just another example of Jindal playing fast and loose with the facts.

  16. xstryker says:

    Being cautious about medicine is not a serious flaw or anything dangerous

    Oh, sure, it’s not dangerous to let an infection spread! Why on earth would that cause me to question Bobby’s judgment, I can’t imagine… Holy f***, it’s like stepping into the twilight zone when you talk to these people!

  17. meatball says:

    “Being cautious about medicine is not a serious flaw or anything dangerous and in the end it affects only him so why do you care?”

    As an expert in medicine I say, “Protack, stick to planes.”

  18. a. price says:

    Does Mike have a crush on Bayou Bobby now? i can see why He’s younger than Castle.. more exotic.. has that hick-charm…. nice to see you’ve moved on