"Bobby" Jindal, the battered bit of old presidential timber presently warping out behind the bait shoppe, put on his National Political Figure drag again and went to Washington to talk about energy policy. Most of the energy in the plan is to get people talking about what a serious person Jindal is, and not to notice that his state is falling apart, his education plan there is a whopping side dish of theocratic corruption, and that his constituents would be bitterly divided should Jindal be eaten by alligators. So he goes to Washington to be a smart person again and what a hot messhe continues to be.

"The reality is right now we've got an administration in the Obama administration that are science deniers when it comes to harnessing America's energy resources and potential to create good-paying jobs for our economy and for our future," Jindal said. "Right now we've got an administration whose policies are holding our economy hostage." The "science deniers" line of attack mirrors that of progressives against Republican lawmakers who don't accept the broad scientific consensus that climate change is real and man-made. When asked for examples, Jindal cited the administration's resistance to approving the Keystone pipeline and recent rules to establish strict limits on pollution from coal-fired power plants. "It's not controversial to say human activity is contributing in some way to change," he said. "In terms of how much it is and how serious it is, I say let the scientists decide that. Let's not have politicians decide that."

Of course, it was scientists -- and the odd economist -- who first established what a sucker bet our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, is. And, on the whole anthropogenic climate change thing, scientistsalready pretty much have decided that. But what makes Jindal's most recent stab at political puberty even more of a work of art is the way that the same guy who's calling the administration a bunch of science deniers declines to answer the burning political question of whether Charles Darwin was right.

"The reality is I'm not an evolutionary biologist," the Republican governor and possible 2016 presidential hopeful told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "What I believe as a father and a husband is that local schools should make decisions on how they teach," he said. "And we can talk about Common Core and why I don't believe in a national curriculum. I think local school districts should make decisions about what should be taught in their classroom. I want my kids to be exposed to the best science, the best critical thinking."

OK. Things I'm not, but which I believe anyway.

I am not an astronomer, but I believe the sun is there.

I am not a physicist, but I'm pretty sure gravity works.

I am not a chemist, but my own unlettered review of the peer-reviewed literature leads me to believe that two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen makes pretty good water, and that when it gets too cold, the water tends to become solid.

I am not a mathematician, but I still trust Pythagoras when I'm checking out someone's hypotenuse.

And it is here where I point out that Jindal's wingnut-catnip reversal on Common Core could cost Louisiana $25 million over the next five years. But, hey, Jindal's got that covered. He'll take$15 million in my money as long as he can use it to keep kindergartners as ignorant as he is. Yeah, and Bernie Sanders is an unserious candidate.

Headshot of Charles P. Pierce
Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.