I do agree that – once Jindal’s staff began communicating with Politico – some things have gotten muddled and complex. I completely agree that muddle and complexity are strategies to escape a jam when a politician is guilty. I’ll be watching to see what happens over the next days. Agree with all your comments about ORM.

I wouldn’t be so sure he’s out of the woods yet.

At this stage, what seems to be happening is a muddying up of the waters which is what you do if you get caught in a potentially crippling lie. If you get called out for lying as a politician in a big way, but you didn’t lie, then you can easily turn that to your advantage by setting the record unambiguously straight. The story gets simpler, and usually there’s some reportes with some serious egg on their face.

But instead of getting simpler, the story is getting more complex which is what happens when a political entity goes into damage control when there is actually something damaging.

Further, I wouldn’t say that it was jumping to conclusions that Jindal said he was there in the middle of the event and not a few days later, it’s pretty clear.

1. Sheriff Lee lines up private boats for rescue
2. Bureaucrat says private boats cannot go out
3. Boats go out anyway
4. The next day, or a couple days later, bureaucrat is on the phone complaining to Lee when Jindal walks into Lee’s office. Lee is excitable, is not interested in listening to more complaining, and issues challenge: come and arrest both me and the governor if you don’t like it.

If events happened this way, Jindal did not lie in his speech. Some listeners may have jumped to conclusions, yet Jindal did not lie. Jindal’s story thus would be no different from several stories Candidate Obama told – which led many to jump to conclusions and later scream “Obama lied”, yet which, when examined closely, were not lies. Snopes.com has a listing of 50 alleged Candidate Obama lies – almost all of which allegations resulted from listeners jumping to conclusions about things which Candidate Obama did not quite say. Jindal, possibly similarly, possibly did not quite say anything which was a lie.

And, you know, I was kind of excited, in the initial comment above, about agreeing w/ you and not having any area of potential disagreement! Dang it.

He may not necessarily PAY a price, but he may not raise the funds he needs either.

Of politicians’ biographical-type exaggerations, Jindal’s compares with Hillary and Tuzla. However, Hillary was well known, and already well-financed, at the time of her Tuzla exaggeration. Jindal is less known and unfinanced. It will be interesting to see if Jindal is insta-bounced as a contender – as George Allen with Macaca, as Dean with Yearggh, as Edmund Muskie when he cried. I would bet Jindal will not pay a price – but I’m not a reliable predictor.