Bobby Jindal’s Train to Fantasy Land

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Bobby Jindal not only is dishonest, but he is also a hypocrite. During his rebuttal to Barack Obama’s speech on Tuesday Jindal attacked spending which he described as “a ‘magnetic levitation’ line from Las Vegas to Disneyland.” Factcheck.org pointed out that this widely repeated claim by Republicans, along with many of their other claims, is simply untrue:

A widely repeated claim that $8 billion is set aside for a “levitating train” to Disneyland is untrue. That total is for unspecified high-speed rail projects, and some of it may or may not end up going to a proposed 300-mph “maglev” train connecting Anaheim, Calif., with Las Vegas.

There was already some irony in seeing how Jindal used a fictitious example of Disneyland to mock the stimulus bill and then immediately took off for a vacation at Walt Disney World. While I might overlook this, being a tremendous fan of Walt Disney World and having gone there often, I’m afraid this just doesn’t make a good commercial:

Bobby Jindal, you have just dramatically reduced your chances for national office following an embarrassing speech. What are you gong to do?

I’m going to Disney World.

I hope Jindal enjoyed his visit to Fantasy Land. I wonder if he took the (slow) train around the Magic Kingdom, or perhaps tried to learn about (non-levitating) high-speed rail at Big Thunder Mountain.

It gets much worse. Perhaps Jindal thought that the Disney monorail was an effective form of mass transportation. His administration is now going after the money which he made a point of attacking:

Louisiana’s transportation department plans to request federal dollars for a New Orleans to Baton Rouge passenger rail service from the same pot of railroad money in the president’s economic stimulus package that Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized as unnecessary pork on national television Tuesday night.

The high-speed rail line, a topic of discussion for years, would require $110 million to upgrade existing freight lines and terminals to handle a passenger train operation, said Mark Lambert, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development…

Jindal oversees the state transportation department and appointed its secretary…

I’m afraid that Jindal’s response to this comes off as sounding more like an evasion we’d get from Goofy:

Asked for comment Friday about the Jindal stance on the federal rail money, the governor’s Chief of Staff Timmy Teepell said he does not think the Las Vegas to Anaheim line is a good use of taxpayer money. He did not address the Louisiana proposal.

Kenneth the Page, despite all the comparisons to Jindal, would never be so dishonest.

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