Leadership and Crisis, by Gov. Bobby Jindal: on Principles & Values

Bill Clinton: OpEd: America elected Clinton knowing his personal history

Unethical behavior sometimes comes out of the blue. But in the case of Bill Clinton, for example, Americans already knew a lot about his...er...unusual personal history during his first presidential campaign--and we elected him anyway.

Bobby Jindal: Crisis principles: urgency; listening; informing public

As I look back, the oil spill has reinforced several principles I have learned through my years of dealing with crisis:
1. You must lead from the front. Always.
2. Speed is everything. There must be a sense of urgency.
3. Listen to the locals.
4. Don't wait for federal agencies to tell you what to do.tell them what you need.
5. Keep the public informed of details. Transparency inspires confidence.
6. Make quick decisions when plans fail.
7. Demand and expect excellence.
8. Ignore the politics, focus on doing a good job.
9. Read the old playbook, then throw it out and get ready to improvise.
10. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, immediately. If you prepare for war and peace breaks out, great! But if you prepare for peace and war breaks out, you're in trouble!

Bobby Jindal: I'm a son of the Deep South

National reporters have often said to me, "It must have been so tough for you growing up in the Deep South." To which my response is, "Um.no. It was not tough, in fact it was tremendous. I'm a son of the Deep South, so you can keep your prejudices to yourself." Louisiana is my home and I'm proud of it.

I've never had it tough, but my dad did. He grew up in India, the only one of nine children to get beyond the fifth grade. For me, growing up middle-class in Louisiana was anything but tough. Compared to my father, I grew up in great riches, because I grew up in America.

Bobby Jindal: Elite harbor condescending view of people of faith

To this day, it surprises me how little the national press understands about faith. When I was serving in Washington, I had lunch with a well-known reporter. Before we ate she saw me bow my head and say grace, ever so briefly mind you. She immediately asked me if everything was okay. She was startled and fascinated by what I had done. And the fact that it startled her startled me. She was not rude or condescending. She just didn't have any frame of reference for a person who would say grace in a public restaurant before lunch. But some of our top national reporters ARE condescending, & it goes beyond matters of faith.

Bobby Jindal: 2009 Obama response speech: I blew it

Truth be told, I have never mastered the teleprompter. In fact, I hate the teleprompter. And as the country found out that night, the teleprompter hates me, too.

So here you have me, a guy who is "teleprompter challenged," versus the king of the teleprompter. Bad match up. My delivery was just awful. Even though it's never been done before, I should have just winged the response. The press savage my performance.

The bottom line is this: it was my speech, I delivered it poorly, and I take full responsibility for it. When you screw up, it's time to man up. Interestingly, many people who heard the speech, but did not see it, thought it was great.

Bobby Jindal: Traditional Hindu values mesh with Bible Belt beliefs

But the values I learned from my Hindu parents ran deep: honesty, respect for elders, hard work, modesty, reverence, the importance of family--traditional Hindu values that meshed quite well with Louisiana's traditional Bible Belt beliefs. I never felt culturally different from your typical Baton Rouge kid.

Bobby Jindal: Journey from Hinduism to Christianity began in high school

My questions continued until a church at LSU showed a simple film about the crucifixion. I had studied that momentous event, yet watching that film I suddenly realized that Christ was on the cross because of me--my sins--what I had done, what I had failed to do. This was my epiphany. He didn't die for billions, which was so abstract, but because of me. Suddenly, God was tangible.

In the summer of 1987 I knelt in prayer and accepted Christ as my Savior. For a year I postponed telling my parents.

My path to Christianity was an intellectual journey followed by a leap of faith. It took me years, and at the end of it I concluded that the historical evidence for Christianity was overwhelming

Haley Barbour: OpEd: Successful GOP chair and policy wonk

Kathleen Blanco: 2003 TV ad: "Wake up, Louisiana!" beat Jindal 52-48

Still, the election wasn't over. [We faced] a runoff with the perfectly positioned Kathleen Blanco--she didn't have a controversial record to defend, she seemed non-threatening, and she could attract bipartisan support as a Democrat campaigning as a cultural conservative. She was widely known and I was not. At the very end of the campaign, Blanco went on the attack, running a TV ad that featured a voice shouting, "Wake up, Louisiana!" Displaying an unflattering picture of me, the ad warned that people were in danger of electing some guy no one really knew. The ad played to Blanco's strengths as a safe, status quoi candidate, which was a good place to be at the time, pre-Katrina. In the end she beat us, 52 to 48 percent.

Ted Stevens: Accepted gifts from oil services company

The Republican Party professed to be a party of outsiders when it took over the House in 1994. And it was. But Washington changed them.