Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) is a smart guy who is correct about a many aspects of public policy. He was out of line, however, to speak out on the White House lawn against President Obama's desire to raise the minimum wage and failure to approve the XL pipeline.
Jindal has a solid argument and he can make it well. Why he chose to do so in such an inappropriate way right after the National Governors' Association met with the president, is something of a mystery. Indeed, there is something mysterious about Jindal generally lately.
He is widely considered to be mulling a presidential campaign. For my money, nothing would make him a more compelling candidate than a governor who tackled gigantic issues like pension reform at home. But Jindal, since abandoning a major tax overhaul at the beginning of the last legislative session, seems strangely absent from the Louisiana stage.
What's more, it's hardly presidential to speak up at a governors' stage outside the White House. There is a time and a place to advance criticisms of Obama's lousy economic record, and why Jindal didn't see the gathering was neither the time nor the place is bizarre.
It's not so much because there is supposed to be a sheen of bipartisanship to the meeting between the governors and Obama. It's a matter of decorum.
For example, who knows what the military men assigned to Bill Clinton's White House thought of the crafty draft dodger. The president is the Commander in Chief; one salutes the suit, as they say.
Jindal should have taken the same sort of approach. The White House and the person who occupies it deserve and demand a measure of respect. A politician who may harbor dreams of occupying it himself should be better mannered around it.
James Varney can be reached at email@example.com