Purple finger routine getting old, Bobby Jindal told

Bobby Jindal, the Republican congressman from Louisiana was today advised by party members that his purple finger routine was getting old and that he needed to come up with some new material.

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, who is of Indian origin, attained star status in the Republican party during the State of the Union address last February, when his idea for congressional non-combatants to smear their fingers with purple ink in order to symbolically celebrate the Iraqi transitional assembly elections was taken up enthusiastically by top party brass (via Dark Days Ahead). Although the elections later resulted in the ousting of pro-US interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and led to the rise of fundamentalist Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali-Sistani, who reportedly had ties to Iran, the purple-finger idea was deemed a tremendous success, leading many people to believe in Jindal being the next up-and-coming GOP poster child. After the address, Jindal was observed proudly holding up his purple finger for many months long after the culmination of the event right up to the summer of this year, when hurricane Katrina diverted everybody's focus from the war in Iraq to the tragedy in New Orleans, thereby taking his purple finger out of the limelight.

Mr Jindal was understandably upset with the change of fortune of his finger, which then went into hiding for a while but then appeared to have obtained a new lease of life with yesterday's elections in Iraq. Mr Jindal immediately circulated an email to party colleagues, requesting a re-purplification of their fingers, but was disappointed by refusals from members of Congress who believed that the idea had outlived it's shelf life.

"It's getting old", said Tom DeLay (R-Texas) , former house whip and future criminal. "People want something new to be unreasonably jingoistic about. Purple fingers don't do it anymore". "He should get that finger looked at", said Bill Frist (R-Tennessee), current Senate majority leader and future Tom Delay cellmate. "It might be purple due to a lack of blood circulation. In fact, based on the video footage I've seen of his finger, I believe it needs to be chopped off."

With his finger's star fading into oblivion, Mr Jindal reportedly is planning to return back to his Indian roots and reconvert to Hinduism or Sikhism, whichever would be better conducive to a successful career in Indian politics.

Update : Jindal passes his torch to a Montana 10 year old. Montana. Who would have guessed?