Did You Know that Bobby Jindal Is an Exorcist? (Seriously)

Maybe he should USE that talent on VITTER, PALIN, CHENEY? Jingle Jindal another dangerously Christianized RepubliCON....

by tristero

"Jindal narrated a bizarre story of a personal encounter with a demon, in which he participated in an exorcism with a group of college friends."
I was sickened reading Michael Gerson's clinically insane profile of Jindal that Digby linked to. I'll focus on just one sentence:

Jindal has the ability to overwhelm any topic with facts and thoughtful arguments -- displaying a mastery of detail that encourages confidence.
Oh, really? Confidence? We talking about this Bobby Jindal?
...in an essay Jindal wrote in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, a serious right-wing Catholic journal, Jindal narrated a bizarre story of a personal encounter with a demon, in which he participated in an exorcism with a group of college friends. And not only did they cast out the supernatural spirit that had possessed his friend, Jindal wrote that he believes that their ritual may well have cured her cancer.

Reading the article leaves no doubt that Jindal -- who graduated from Brown University in 1991, was a Rhodes Scholar, and had been accepted at Yale Law School and Harvard Medical School when he wrote the essay -- was completely serious about the encounter. He even said the experience "reaffirmed" his faith.
Just what the world needs: Another seriously disturbed world leader. People, this is the kind of extremism that begs comparison with the likes of Osama bin Laden, and Jindal does not come across as the more rational of the two.

But of course, Jindal doesn't stop with exorcism. He's also a creationist whose grasp of science is alarmingly stupid:

don’t think students learn by us withholding information from them. … I want them to see the best data. I personally think human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. I do think that there’s a creator. … Now the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness.
This is called by those in the biz "teach the controversy" creationism, ie the notion that since there's a controversy over evolution, public schools should teach "intelligent design" creationism as well as evolution by natural selection. There's just one teensy weensy problem with this position: there is no controversy over evolution.

And Gerson thinks this clown shows a mastery of detail and uses "thoughtful" arguments! (Oh, how that word has been perverted by the right wing; I've seen defenses of the KKK described as "thoughtful.")

Clearly, an ignorant, unstable extremist like Jindal belongs nowhere near the levers of political power. Equally clearly, Michael Gerson has no business foisting his deranged opinions from the pages of a major metropolitan daily. We need to remember this, folks: despite the enthusiasm with which once-respectable media treat these people, modern conservatives are not responsible actors. They should never be taken seriously for to do so is dangerous:

****************************

Will Revelations About Bobby Jindal's Weird Secret Past Destroy His Political Career?

By Max Blumenthal

Did you know about the exorcism? The name that came from The Brady Bunch? Those and other surprising facts about a GOP rising politician.

Did you know about the exorcism? The name that came from The Brady Bunch? Those and other surprising facts about one of America's fastest rising young politicians.

Last night, on the evening of President Barack Obama's first major speech, the Republicans put forward Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal as the face of the opposition, tapping him to deliver their response. As a 37-year-old Indian-American Rhodes Scholar, the first-term governor presented a deliberate visual counterpoint to Obama. His folksy speech last evening is meeting with mixed reviews. But with GOP politicians already jockeying for the 2012 primary, Jindal is emerging as a top contender.

"From the insiders I'm talking to, Jindal's in the top three, right next to [Sarah] Palin and [Mitt] Romney. He's the rock star of the Republican Party right now," says Jeff Crouere, the former executive director of the Louisiana GOP and host of daily political talk show Ringside Politics.

But as the country gets acquainted with the Bayou's boy wonder, the stranger details of Jindal's religious or personal background remain largely unknown, even among the Republican grassroots. How many Americans know that Jindal boasted of participating in an exorcism that purged the spirit of Satan from a college girlfriend? So far, Jindal's tale of "beating a demon" remains behind the subscription wall of New Oxford Review, an obscure Catholic magazine; only a few major blogs have seized on the story.

Born in Baton Rouge in 1971, Jindal rarely visited his parents' homeland. His birth name was Piyush Jindal. When he was four years old, Piyush changed his name to "Bobby" after becoming mesmerized by an episode of The Brady Bunch. Jindal later wrote that he began considering converting to Catholicism during high school after "being touched by the love and simplicity of a Christian girl who dreamt of becoming a Supreme Court justice so she could stop her country from 'killing unborn babies.'" After watching a short black-and-white film on the crucifixion of Christ, Jindal claimed he "realized that if the Gospel stories were true, if Christ really was the son of God, it was arrogant of me to reject Him and question the gift of salvation."

Jindal's Hindu parents were non-plussed. "My parents have never truly accepted my conversion and still see my faith as a negative that overshadows my accomplishments," he wrote. "They were hurt and felt I was rejecting them by accepting Christianity I long for the day when my parents understand, respect and possibly accept my faith. For now I am satisfied that they accept me." (In a subsequent interview with Little India, Jindal claimed his parents were "very supportive. They felt like it was important that I was embracing God.")

During his years at Brown University, Jindal pursued his Catholic faith with unbridled zeal. Jindal became emotionally involved with a classmate named Susan who had overcome skin cancer and struggled to cope with the suicide of a close friend. Jindal reflected in an article for a Catholic magazine (called "Beating a Demon: Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare") that "sulfuric" scents hovered over Susan everywhere she went. In the middle of a prayer meeting, Jindal claimed that Susan collapsed and began convulsing on the floor. His prayer partners gathered together on the floor, holding hands and shouting, "Satan, I command you to leave this woman!"

While under the supposed control of satanic demons, Susan lashed out at Jindal and his friends. "Whenever I concentrated long enough to begin prayer, I felt some type of physical force distracting me," Jindal reflected. "It was as if something was pushing down on my chest, making it very hard for me to breathe I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself."

Toward the conclusion of what Jindal called "the tremendous battle between the Susan we knew and loved and some strange and evil force," Jindal and his friends forced Susan to read passages from the Bible. "She choked on certain passages and could not finish the sentence 'Jesus is Lord.' Over and over, she repeated "Jesus is L..L..LL," often ending in profanities," Jindal wrote. Finally, evil gave way to the light. "Just as suddenly as she went into the trance, Susan suddenly reappeared and claimed 'Jesus is Lord.' With an almost comical smile, Susan then looked up as if awakening from a deep sleep and asked, 'Has something happened?'"

During the 2006 gubernatorial campaign, the campaign of Jindal's Democratic opponent, incumbent Gov. Kathleen Blanco, attempted to inject his religious views into the race by running an ad promoting a website called JindalonReligion.com, which featured his essay about participating in an exorcism. However, Jindal immediately fired back, denouncing the commercial as an assault on his faith and on the deeply religious culture of Louisiana. "Jindal turned that one around and tried to play the victim before [the Democrats] could get any traction," Crouere told me. "Then the Blanco campaign just backed off"

Though Crouere is a Republican, he harbors strong doubts about Jindal. To him, the young governor is still too green for the national stage. "I just find it odd that the GOP seems to have as its savior a guy who has been in Congress for three years and governor for one year," Crouere said. "The same criticism that was leveled against Obama for being untested could easily be leveled against Jindal."

Because Obama entered the presidential campaign without an extensive political track record, the video histrionics of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright, remained unexposed until the middle of the Democratic primary. Could similar exposure of Jindal's tales of "spiritual warfare" complicate his ascendancy as well? "The Louisiana Democrats don't really have their act together, and weren't able to get the word out," Crouere remarked. "I still don't think a lot of people are aware of the nature of Jindal's religious background."


http://www.alternet.org/
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast and writing fellow at The Nation Institute, whose book, Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books), is due this spring.

*************

Yes, a Massive Ideological Shift Has Happened in the USA

Posted by Chris Bowers

The public has shifted in favor of government intervention in the economy to the same degree it has shifted toward Democrats.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's speech last night was yet another example that, despite vast Democratic gains in the 2006 and 2008 elections, conservatives do not believe that this partisan shift has been accompanied by an ideological shift. Jindal's Republican response read from the exact same conservative script about government is part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, that we have been hearing for decades. While David Brooks referred to such a belief as "a form of nihilism," Jindal is hardly the only conservative clinging to this false hope. The numbers these commenters rely upon are the post-election ideological self-identification numbers from Pew, showing that significantly more Americans still self-identify as conservative than liberal.



However, the simple fact is that when polling firms stop asking Americans abstract questions about what vague ideological term they call themselves, and start asking Americans about what they actually believe, an enormous ideological shift is apparent. For example, last month the Harris poll found a huge popular shift in favor of government programs over the last three years:



ROCHESTER, N.Y. - January 13, 2009 - A new study finds that public support for government services is substantially higher than it was in 2005. However, the level of support varies greatly from service to service.(...)


For every one of 13 services that were asked about in 2005 and in this new Harris Poll,




the percentage of people supporting them ("a great deal" or "somewhat") has increased


over the last three years.


The biggest increases in support are for:




Intelligence services, up to 18 points to 79%




Immigration and naturalization, up 17 points to 64%




Medicare, up 14 points to 90%




Defense, up 14 points to 85%




Federal aid to public schools, up 14 points to 83%




Crime fighting and prevention, up 14 points to 91%; and




Social Security, up 12 points to 88%.
These double digit shifts in favor of government programs since late 2005 mirror Democratic gains in terms of both timeframe and overall size. These shifts are why a massive new public spending bill like the stimulus / jobs package was politically possible.



A few conservative commentators, like Rich Lowry, are aware of this shift. Writing about what would happen if the economy does recover as a result of expanded government, last night Lowry wrote the following:


He's [Obama is] trying to redefine extensive government activism as simple pragmatism, and if he succeeds, might well shift the center of American politics for a generation.


Indeed. The public has shifted in favor of government intervention in the economy to the same degree it has shifted toward Democrats. If Democrats succeed in turning the economy around through increased government intervention, then the ideological gains measured by the Harris poll will be solid for a generation. Of course, if the economy does not turn around over the next three years or so, then this ideological shift might wellbe temporary.


Of course, there are other, even more obvious signs of an ideological shift in America than polling about support for governmental programs. Ethnic and religious identity are subsets of ideology, rather than something to be found in nature. That a rapidly increasing percentage of Americans are self-identifying as non-white and / or non-Christian is, in and of itself, demonstrative of an enormous ideological shift in America that does not bode well for conservatives. Republicans tried to paper up their problems on this front by using Bobby Jindal in their response to President Obama, but the depth of their problem in this area was revealed when many conservatives started spreading rumors that Jindal is a "secret Muslim," too. However, the truth is that Jindal is actually an exorcist. I think there was an ideological shift away from that belief back in the 19th century.


******************************

Bobby Jindal and the Republicans: FAIL

by Jane Hamsher

There's a problem with the Republican Party -- do you think those who provided endless stories about "Democrats in disarray" are going to notice?

Last night Barack Obama inspired hope and confidence in the American people in a time of crisis while the GOP sat on their hands and did a collective audition for Mean Girls II. Rising star Bobby Jindal proved himself the Steve Largent of our time.



Meanwhile, Republican governors who aren't busy running for President who are trying to provide for their states are realizing that when it comes to actual governance, conservative ideology sucks:



Re: GOP: Bob, what do you make of the moves by some of the GOP governors lately, particularly Gov. Crist of Florida and Gov. Huntsman of Utah? Crist gave his public endorsement to the stimulus package, while Huntsman criticized Gov. Jindal for saying he wouldn't take some of the stimulus money. Also, the governor of Utah came out in favor of civil unions. What do Republicans like Crist and Huntsman hope to accomplish within the party?



Robert G. Kaiser: I am intrigued by the fact that we obviously have two Republican Parties now -- at least. One is the House Republican Party, a staunchly conservative outfit that has yet to digest its own fate or think through the implications of its serious defeats in 2006 and 2008. Some Senators line up with the hard-line House Republicans, but others don't -- hence the deal on the stimulus bill, made possible by three Republicans.



Then the governors, particularly the big-state governors like Crist and Arnold. They believe in government, and aren't ashamed to say so. They realize (as polls confirm) that voters now expect government to govern. They are, I think, nervous about their party's future if the House Republicans actually control the GOP.



Stay tuned. This is going to be an ongoing soap opera.



Barack Obama provided a vision of America as it could be to people who are suffering while Bobby Jindal was happy to demagogue Katrina and act like a proud pawn in a political game.



There's a bit of a problem with the Republican Party -- do you think those who provided endless stories about "Democrats in disarray" over the past eight years are going to notice?


http://www.alternet.org/