Bobby Jindal 'rebuts' Obama's inaugural speech, because apparently that needed doing

Apparently Sarah Palin was unavailable. I'm so old I can remember when Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was going to be the Republican answer to Obama. Then he opened his mouth, and that whole plan got shot to hell.

That doesn't mean he's not still out there, trying to make a national name for himself. His latest effort was a "rebuttal" to Obama's inaugural address. (Is that really a thing? Is an inaugural the sort of thing that really needs a "rebuttal"?) And, as it turns out, Jindal hasn't gotten any better at this sort of thing.

Jindal's speech ' which at 25 minutes was one and half times longer than Obama's address ' appeared to be coolly received by the Republican Party establishment, not least because of his rapid-fire speaking style and the band warming up in the next ballroom over.

Anyway, most of it was word salad, finely chopped, but here's a few highlights. The overall theme, such as it was, was federal government bad! and that Republicans in the government need to, um, stop engaging on debates over government at all, because that's what the Democrats want them to do. No, that doesn't make any sense. Yes, not making sense is practically a requirement for seeking national office as a Republican, these days.

A debate about which party can better manage the federal government is a very small and shortsighted debate.

Today's conservatism is in love with zeroes. ['] This obsession with zeroes has everyone in our party focused on what? Government.

If it's worth doing, block grant it to the states. If it's something you don't trust the states to do, then maybe Washington shouldn't do it at all.

We must stop being the stupid party.

Anyway, most of it is unparsable gibberish, moving dully into buzzword bingo (European socialism! Liberal media! New York Times!), then devolving into a prescription for solving the problem that, boldly, turns out to be the exact same thing all the other Republicans say about how Republicans are the party for growth and opportunity and whatnot, growth which we'll achieve primarily via motivational slogans and by replacing 3/4ths of the government with "a handful of good websites." Yeah, that.

I actually find myself already looking forward to the next election season. Now that they've dispatched with the irritatingly boring Romney, the real Republican brain trust can get to work on getting themselves nominated. Good Lord, that'll be something to watch.