It’s Karma, Bobby

An Open Letter to Governor Jindal

Dayne Sherman

Column
5/12/13
Words: 750
Published in the Daily Star and eleswhere

Dear Bobby,

We haven’t talked in a long time, almost a year. We need to catch up. In August, I wrote you a letter titled “Bobby, can you hear me in the bunker?” I predicated your downfall. Don’t blame me for not warning you. I tried. Now the party is over.

I heard screaming the other day outside our little house in Ponchatoula. When I went into the backyard, I could tell it was coming from the general direction of Baton Rouge some 50 miles away. I later learned that the squalling was old “Green Beans,” your Department of Health and Hospital leader wailing from under the tires of a big bus at the Governor’s Mansion. I didn’t even know you could drive a car much less a bus.

The Medicaid contract fraud investigation must be keeping you awake at night. You have no real friends, man, and when the indictments start falling, folks are going to “squeal like a pig,” to use an apt line from the movie “Deliverance.”

The school voucher thing has been nothing but trouble, and the Supremes pistol-whipped you over it. When Representative Stephen Carter played pack mule for your signature legislation, I could tell he wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar, not that it would have helped. But what were you thinking? Haven’t you read the Louisiana Constitution?

Your retirement law was a disaster, too. Senator Elbert Guillory and Representative Kevin Pearson were your champions. Do you ever talk to those guys? Guillory just said that he consulted a witch doctor instead of a real doctor for an illness, and he thinks it’s legitimate science for Louisiana classrooms. Pearson has all of the gravitas of a vacuum cleaner salesman. And the Supremes are going to stomp your retirement law into the gumbo mud. 

But back to those unconstitutional vouchers. Here’s a tip to help you with those sinkhole approval numbers: Fire Superintendent of Education John White. Blame all of the school legislation on him and then appoint Steve Monaghan, that intimidating-looking union boss, as the new Super. The public school teachers will leave you alone for a change.

Dude, stop trying to pay for vouchers with K-12 money. Many of these schools have DVD teachers and textbooks that say the KKK was good and the Loch Ness monster real. Instead, take the money out of the university budgets. More than a few professors brag that they don’t even vote. Higher ed is easy pickings. Most college professors are too dumb to miss the money in their paychecks anyhow.

You’ve got to get out in front of these disasters. I have an idea. Why not tell your staff that you are canoeing the Atchafalaya with three college buddies, and then go to the Chicken Ranch in Nevada, the big brothel. You’ve got to get caught with a woman on purpose. Then pull a David Vitter and do a press conference with your wife. You’ll gain in the polls. 

Better yet, marry the prostitute and you’ll come back stronger than Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Louisiana people will eat it up. It’ll be like Earl Long and Blaze Starr. You’ll get a reality TV show as big as Duck Dynasty.

I’m ashamed to admit that you had me hoodwinked, Bobby. I thought you had the Midas touch. Everything turned to gold for a long while. Lately, though, you have the manure touch. I won’t even try to explain it to you.

Wait, I might have the answer. I know you have done exorcisms in college, but can you perform a real life resurrection from the dead? I mean like Lazarus in the Bible. That could change everything overnight. Fast. People will believe again.

No, it won’t work. Did anyone tell you Willie Nelson, my hero, just turned 80? He’s got a song that you should download on your iPod. It’s real catchy. It goes something like this: “There's just a little old fashioned karma coming down / Just a little old fashioned justice going round / A little bit of sowing and a little bit of reaping / A little bit of laughing and a little bit of weeping / Just a little old fashioned karma coming down.”

Yeah, Bobby, that’s your new theme song. Perhaps it’s time to resign from the governorship and take a little vacation. It’s all downhill from here on out. And I’d never lie to a friend.

Your pal,

Dayne

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

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Dayne Sherman, Writer, Speaker, Scholar
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