Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s performance delivering the Republicans’ response to Pres. Obama’s address to Congress last week was widely panned, even in his own party. Now he has revealed that an anecdote he used to illustrate his party’s belief that government regulation is deadly was false:

Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night — about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims?

Turns out it wasn’t actually, you know, true…

Jindal had described being in the office of Sheriff Harry Lee “during Katrina,” and hearing him yelling into the phone at a government bureaucrat who was refusing to let him send volunteer boats out to rescue stranded storm victims, because they didn’t have the necessary permits. Jindal said he told Lee, “that’s ridiculous,” prompting Lee to tell the bureaucrat that the rescue effort would go ahead and he or she could arrest both Lee and Jindal.

But now, a Jindal spokeswoman has admitted to Politico that in reality, Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone “days later.” The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.

Jindal’s story was meant to illustrate the premise that government regulation causes deadly problems — and to make himself appear to have been a hero during the crisis. As it happens, neither assertion was true.

Another unusual aspect to Jindal’s story was that at the time of the disaster, all three branches of the government were under control of his party, including the Congress, where Jindal served in the House of Representatives.