WASHINGTON (TIP): They could soon be calling him Boo-Boo Jindal. First, there was that creepy video of an ostensibly private – and orchestrated – family conversation about his Presidential run that was made public. Then Indian-Americans, the hyphenated-group that Jindal was formerly proud to belong to, twitted him on twitter with corrosive jokes.
The Louisiana governor is being ridiculed and laughed out of the US Presidential election only hours after he announced his White House run.
The video first: In what was meant to be a display of old-fashioned family values where important things are discussed at the family kitchen table, Jindal and his wife Supriya apparently wanted to let their three children know that he was running for President and life was about to get more hectic.
”Mommy and daddy have been thinking and talking a lot about this, and we have decided that we are going to be running for president this year,” Jindal solemnly tells the three children in a moment captured by a security camera mounted in a tree. ”We’re going to talk to you first and then you can’t go tell your friends,” he adds.
No reaction from the kids. None. Nada. ”How do you feel about that?” Supriya Jindal asks. One son gives a quick two thumbs up, their daughter shrugs, and another son remains indifferent.
Not exactly the kind of ringing endorsement daddy and mommy were expecting, but typical of young kids who may not always grasp outsized adult developments.
But releasing the 90-second video on the campaign website (it has subsequently pulled it) to emphasize ”family values” brought even more pain – and ridicule.
”Bobby Jindal campaign gets off to strange start with ‘Paranormal Activity’ video,” sneered the Washington Post. Others described the effort as ”weird” and ”creepy,” questioning why anyone would publicize a private moment with children captured on a nanny-cam.
It got worse after Indian-Americans, the ethnic group Jindal formerly was happy to belong to, got after him after he repeated his disdain for the tendency in U.S to hyphenate its population along ethnic lines, such as Indian-American, Irish-American, African-Americans. ”If we wanted to be Indians, we would have stayed in India,” Jindal had asserted before.