Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., always seems to draw the short straw when it comes to speaking assignments. In 2009, he gave a much-criticized response to President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress – a thankless task when Obama was still at the peak of his popularity.

Today, he made the 9 a.m. speech on Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Given that many attendees are out late on Friday night and already weary of speeches, he had to address a relatively smaller and more subdued crowd than we’ve seen in the past several days. All that said, he gave a pretty solid speech.