Jindal may have fudged the facts in his Katrina boat story Stephen C. Webster

Published: Thursday February 26, 2009





Print This Email This (Update at bottom: Jindal aide 'clarifies' Katrina tale)



Louisiana Governor "Bobby" Jindal's retort to President Obama's first major address to Congress was not exactly well-received.



One Fox News panelist went so far as to call his oration "amateurish," "simplistic" and even "childish." Also, on Thursday, a report by Talking Points Memo strongly suggests Jindal's critics should add dishonest to the litany of complaints.



"During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine," said Jindal during his Tuesday night speech. "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."



The problem with Jindal's recounting is that it may not have even happened. However, the one man who could have set the record straight -- Democrat Harry Lee, "one of the most famous politicians in Louisiana history," according to the Times-Picayune -- passed away in late 2007.



"According to numerous reports, Harry Lee did not leave the affected area of New Orleans during the crisis," wrote TPM's Zachary Roth. "But there is no reported evidence of Jindal having set foot in the area during the period when people were still stranded on roofs -- which, based on a review of news stories from the time, was only until September 3 at the very latest. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests he did not."



"We've reviewed [Lexis] Nexis and other sources, and can find no news reports putting Jindal on the ground in the affected area during the few days after Katrina struck when people might still have needed boats to rescue them from rooftops," he added.



Portions of TPM's research were based on a DailyKos diary by user xgz, who links to a find in CNN's archives that appears to be "the final nail in the coffin," he said.



Speaking with CNN's Larry King on Sept. 11, 2005, Lee, the sheriff Jindal spoke of, said he didn't learn of the required insurance forms until a week after the boats were needed.



Saying, "rules and regulations is what got things all screwed up around here," the sheriff inadvertently shot down the future governor's claim.



"Those boats where not allowed to get into the water when they were needed and I just found out about seven days later one of the reason boats couldn't get in was they didn't have enough life preservers and some of them didn't have proof of insurance," said Lee. "And I'm sure that there's a FEMA regulation that says that. But when a storm of this magnitude hits, you through those regulations out the window and you do what you have to do and start saving lives."



"Perhaps Mr. Jindal can explain how he learned that lesson during Katrina, when Harry Lee didn't learn about it until a week later?" asked DailyKos user Barbara Morrill.



A request for comment to Gov. Jindal's office was not returned as of press time.



Jindal aide 'clarifies' Katrina tale

Politico's Ben Smith spoke to an aide for Governor Jindal who "clarifies" his Katrina anecdote, but it may not be enough for some liberal critics.



"A spokeswoman for Bobby Jindal says the Louisiana governor didn't intend to 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," Smith writes. "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."



Jindal chief of staff Timmy Teepell also told Smith that the "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," Teepell claims.



At TPMMuckraker, Zachary Roth responds that this is "no minor difference."



"Jindal's presence in Lee's office during the crisis itself was a key element of the story's intended appeal, putting him at the center of the action during the maelstrom," Roth writes. "Just as important, Jindal implied that his support for the sheriff helped ensure the rescue went ahead. But it turns out Jindal wasn't there at the key moment, and played no role in making the rescue happen."



Roth adds, "There's a larger point here, though. The central anecdote of the GOP's prime-time response to President Obama's speech, intended to illustrate the threat of excessive government regulation, turns out to have been made up. Maybe it's time to rethink the premise."





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