Jindal aides clarify Katrina story

A spokeswoman for Bobby Jindal says the Louisiana governor didn't imply that an anecdote about battling bureaucrats during Katrina directly involved the governor or took place during the heat of a fight to release rescue boats.

The spokeswoman, Melissa Sellers, said the story Jindal told in his response to Obama actually took place some days later in Lee's office -- though still in Katrina's chaotic aftermath -- as Lee was "recounting" his frustrations with the bureaucracy to someone else on the telephone.

Liberal critics have raised questions about the story, which Jindal told this way:

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, 'Sheriff, that's ridiculous.' And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!' Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.



"It was days later," Sellers said. "Sheriff Lee was on the phone and the governor came down to visit him. It wasn't that they were standing right down there with the boats."

She said she didn't know who Lee, who died in 2007, was on the phone, about the incident with the boats when the governor described him as yelling into the phone.

UPDATE: I'd initially misunderstood Sellers to be saying Jindal and Lee didn't meet while rescue efforts were still underway. In fact, she said, the conversation took place in the aftermath of the storm, but after the boat incident.

"Bobby and I walked into Harry Lee’s office – he’s yelling on the phone about a decision he’s already made," Jindal chief of staff Timmy Teepell recalled. "He’s saying, 'This is a decision I made, and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me.'"

Teepell said the exchange took place in the week following Katrina, when Jindal visited Jefferson Parish multiple times.

"He was boots on the ground all the time," he said.

ALSO: Sellers insists that there is no difference between Jindal's account and the one she and Teepell told, and objects to my characterization of a difference in the immediacy of Jindal's story and the version that has him listening while Lee recounts something that has already happened.

ALSO: "This is liberal blogger B.S. The story is clear," Teepell adds.

UPDATE: Jindal's staff sends over a video of Lee talking about Jindal's visits immediately after the storm, though it doesn't mention this particular story: