Jindal gets panned

Bobby Jindal's rising star in the Republican Party appears to have lost some of its luster after his performance Tuesday night in the official GOP response to President Obama's address to Congress.

The high-profile televised gig has helped launch some lesser-known politicians into national prominence, while sidelining others who were deemed not ready for prime time. The Louisiana governor's uneven appearance might put him in the latter category.

While some Republicans saw the 37-year-old Jindal as perhaps their best presidential hope in 2012, his speech emphasized his youth while not reflecting his charisma. And his high-pitched, chirpy Bayou accent didn't help.

The reviews have been mixed, to say the least.

MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan said this afternoon that Jindal faced "almost an impossible assignment" following Obama, whom he called a "professional" at the top of his game.

Still, in contrast, Jindal came off as a rookie thrown into the World Series, Buchanan said.

"I'm afraid the manager was out on the mound before the end of the first inning," he said, adding that the general impression is that "this fella needs a little seasoning."

National Public Radio's Juan Williams said that Jindal's presentation was "sing-songy” and that Jindal looked “childish” compared to Obama. "I think he had a really poor performance tonight, I’m sorry to say,” Williams said on Fox News Channel.

MSNBC's political site was critical as well: "The Louisiana governor, a Rhodes scholar, is a serious guy who’s known for sometimes being too wonky and even somewhat humorless. Well, he tried too hard NOT to look wonky and humorless. But it didn't work; he wasn’t the Bobby Jindal we’ve seen before. Also, his speech seemed to be too much of a brochure about himself rather than about his party and its ideas. To be fair, Jindal got better as his speech wore on, and the good news is that past responders who also got poor initial reviews -- Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius come to mind -- easily recovered."

"This was not Bobby Jindal’s greatest oratorical moment," opined Brit Hume of Fox News.

Jindal "seemed more like a high school student giving a valedictory speech than a potential future leader of the party,” wrote Philip Klein of the American Spectator.

Quite a few fellow Republicans were not impressed.

"A lot of Republicans I am speaking with were expecting this would be like Obama's moment in 2004" when he gave the "one America" speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, David Johnson, a Republican strategist who advised Bob Dole in 1988, told Bloomberg. "He bombed out."

New Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said today he thought the speech was just "Ok."

UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk show host, defended Jindal on his show today while conceding that "stylistically," Obama had outshined Jindal.

"The people on our side are making a real mistake if they go after Bobby Jindal," Limbaugh told listeners. "We cannot shun politicians who speak for our beliefs just because we don't like the way he says it."

Jindal was headed to Disney World today with his family for a vacation. His chief of staff, Timmy Teepell, told the Associated Press that his boss had prepared carefully for the speech and that his message was strong.

"It's a challenge for anybody to follow Obama. The guy is one of the most gifted speakers of our generation," Teepell told the AP. "Bobby's his own harshest critic. He's always looking for ways to improve."