"During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine," said Jindal during his Tuesday night speech. "When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters.
"The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, 'Sheriff, that's ridiculous.' And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!' Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people."
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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told the story during he response to Obama's address to congress. The problem is, it's probably not true.
"According to numerous reports, Harry Lee did not leave the affected area of New Orleans during the crisis," wrote TPM's Zachary Roth. "But there is no reported evidence of Jindal having set foot in the area during the period when people were still stranded on roofs -- which, based on a review of news stories from the time, was only until September 3 at the very latest. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests he did not."
"We've reviewed [Lexis] Nexis and other sources, and can find no news reports putting Jindal on the ground in the affected area during the few days after Katrina struck when people might still have needed boats to rescue them from rooftops," he added.
It's just another Republican tall tale, like WMD in Iraq.
