Horrifying

American Conservative writer Daniel Larison:

Jindal had the misfortune of representing a party with nothing to say and having the even greater misfortune to be matched up against a President who both definitely has something to say and can say it very effectively, which is why the normally ho-hum irrelevance of the opposition’s response has become full-blown disaster for the GOP. Aside from Michael Steele comments, this was the first time a prominent Republican leader addressed the nation since Bush left office, and this was a valuable opportunity to demonstrate that the GOP had learned from its failures and could now serve as a credible political opposition. As with the GOP leadership’s approach to the stimulus, the party showed again with the response that it had not learned any of the right lessons and that it was simply not up to the task of being that credible opposition. What some on the right seem to be missing is that this failure should seem far more terrible to everyone who reacted very negatively to the President’s address. If much of Obama’s domestic agenda should be stopped or limited as much as possible, as I believe it should, the face of the opposition party that Jindal presented to the nation last night is simply not up to the task, and this is demoralizing and slightly horrifying.