I've noticed that in the past couple of election cycles when a particularly effective attack ad goes up against Republican candidates that they use this same tactic of threatening to sue the station's running them. If my memory serves me well, the approach has had mixed results, but it at least generates a story alleging defamation even if the attack is 100% true and verifiable as this one is. I don't think that a station would have any liability for any claim made in a political ad, but I'm sure it is enough to serve as an excuse for some of the more conservative/Republican folk who run some stations. It provides them with cover.

freakin sellout deserves to be exposed. run the ad. changing religions for political reasons and then being a right wing congressman going against your hindu principles is shameful

"Yeah, Bobby, that will get you better and more positive press coverage."

Oh, come on - this is Louisiana. Home of the Advocate and Channel 2. Just because Doug Manship retired doesn't mean they won't toe the line for the Republican of the week.

The Daily Advocate-Fascist in Lafayette seems to exist in a nother dimension; they've not written a bad word about a Republican since about 1990.

Instead of immediately buying into the democratic campaign's accusations, I think it would be responsible to take a look at the source of the information. I took a brief looks (find it in the comments of the EC article linked above), and found the ad seems to be stretching the truth, at best, and at worst, simple libel.

Here's the context for one of the quotes used in the ad

Just as C.S. Lewis removed any room for comfortable opposition to Jesus by identifying Him as either "Lord, liar, or lunatic," so the Catholic Church leaves little room for complacent opposition to her doctrines. Without inflating the issues that separate Catholics from Protestants, for we do worship the same Trinitarian God who died for our sins, I want to refute the notion that Catholicism is merely another denomination with no more merit than any other.

The Reformers who left the Catholic Church rejected, to varying degrees, five beliefs which continue to be upheld by the Catholic Church. The Church claims that these points are found in Scripture, and they have been consistently and clearly taught throughout the Church's history. I will support the Church's claims here.

(1) SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION: Is sold scriptura (the Bible alone) a sufficient basis for the modern Christian to understand God's will?

The Bible does not contain either the claim that it is comprehensive or a listing of its contents, but does describe how it should be used. Scripture and Tradition, not the Bible alone, transmit God's revelation. Tradition is reflected in the Church's authority to interpret Scripture.

I've only read the Jindal response, not the original article. But the response gives us (at last) the full graf of context for both the "utterly depraved minds" and "selfish desires" quotes. The takeaway:

1. Jindal really is being slandered by the Louisiana Democratic Party. He didn't attack Christian Protestants. He didn't call them depraved or selfish. That's just a lie.

2. Jindal is a religious extremist: Protestants should be offended by Jindal, but not for the reasons suggested by the LDP. Jindal appears to believe that humans are incapable of building a personal relationship with God due to their "depraved minds" and "selfish desires." This is the theology that led the Church to torture and burn thousands of so-called heretics. It is the the theology that prompted Luther's 95 Theses.

Jindal's ultramontane (hey, look it up!) view denies the validity of the most spiritually important belief of any Protestant - the personal relationship with God - in favor of deferring to an institution that "infallibly determined the canon of the Bible." How many Christians would give up their personal relationship with God because of the Council of Nicaea?

As a final note, I'm frustrated that the writers at TPMMuckraker just pass along slanderous ads like the LDP's without even bothering to click on a link to an article that would prove them wrong. In this case, the truth is much more interesting than the lie. If TPM is supposed to be different from traditional "stenography" reporting, I'd like to see a little more evidence.

why has the you tube version of the ad been removed?

Just what I was afraid of. Leaving TPMCafe and opening up the comments section means more trolls. The posters here obviously don't know the first thing about proving libel (or slander).

C'mon, TPM, let's go back to the old system.

I read Jindal's defense; this is my reaction:

On "scandalous" - guilty of a lesser charge. True, he called no particular sect "scandalous," but he wasn't accused of that. And he did describe the act of breaking away from the Catholic church that way.

On "depraved" - guilty as charged. Yes, the words were Calvin's, not his, but you can't approvingly quote someone in support of a thesis and then deny accountability for the meaning of the words.

On "selfish" - hung jury. Accepting the argument that he meant everyone, including himself, that still means he said Protestants are selfish.

On "heresy" - guilty as charged. There is no denying that he argued that the choice is between Catholicism and inevitable "anarchy and heresy." Saying he didn't accuse any particular denomination of heresy (something of which, again, he was not accused) is a typical lawyer dodge that may be relevant in a technical legal sense but is in a political debate simply an evasion.

Bottom line is that, as Jindal defender SeahH acknowledged above, Jindal regards Catholicism as superior to all other Christian denominations and one that "leaves little room for complacent opposition to her doctrines." One can try to deny the specific accusations made in the ad, but it can't be denied that he said to Protestants, almost in so many words, "your religion is inferior to mine."

I agree with LarryE's bottom line about Jindal: he does seem to believe that the Protestant faith is inferior to his own.

But the ad goes further and claims that Jindal actually insults Protestants. As far as I can tell, that's false. Here, I think LarryE is off-base on some of the specifics.

- The "depraved minds" quote clearly applies to all humans, including Jindal. After all, Calvin founded a Protestant sect. Same thing with "selfish desires." If one wants to argue that every voter should be insulted by Jindal's low opinion of the human race, I'm with you. But he's not singling out Protestants.

- "scandalous" refers to "divisions", meaning the protestant reformation. He seems to be referring to the messiness of the whole era, and in that sense could just as easily be criticizing the Church.

- "heretical": yes, guilty as charged on this one. And it really gets to the nub of why Protestants should be angry. Not because Jindal insulted them, but because he views religion as something akin to a country club: there's only one good one, and most Americans don't belong to it.