My question for Bobby Jindal...

...would have nothing to do with his recent speech in response to President Obama's non-State of the Union Address. I saw enough of it to agree with the pundits' claims that it seemed like he was addressing a bunch of third-graders. One speech doesn't make or break a career, however; just ask Bill Clinton, whose speech to the Democratic convention in 1988 was generally considered a disaster. Four years later he was elected president. And Jindal has time to recover. Even if he waits until 2040 to run for president he'll still be younger than John McCain was last year.

No, I wouldn't ask Jindal about The Speech. Nor would I ask him about his teenage conversion to Catholicism (kind of like volunteering to be drafted by the Detroit Lions) or the exorcism he apparently participated in at Brown. (Jindal is not a Jesuit or even a lowly diocesan priest; Bill Maher said that it must have been like a citizen's arrest or something.) I would be tempted, but wouldn't ask, how a biology major who turned down medical and law schools at both Harvard and Yale could support the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. No, and I wouldn't even think of asking him why he signed the Sex Offender Chemical Castration Bill authorizing chemical castration of those convicted of certain sex offenses. I don't even know what "chemical" castration is and I'm sure not in any hurry to find out. Sounds like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie.

No, what really interests me is why he chose to call himself "Bobby." You've probably heard the story. He got it from the youngest brother on the "Brady Bunch." But why Bobby? Why not Greg, or at least Peter? (Barry Williams, who played Greg, came down to the Merc floor once. Way cooler than Colin Powell, George H. W. Bush, or anyone else for that matter.) He could have picked Mike, the father's name. Or even Sam, Alice the housekeeper's butcher boyfriend. But Bobby? Why name yourself after that little twerp? Forget the rest of it; that alone should be enough to disqualify Jindal for higher office.