You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Christie’s Crisis.
The gigantic Governor of New Jersey was the leading Republican contender for the presidency in 2016.
The Bob’s Big Boy look-a-like may still be the leading contender.
But C.C. (as his wife calls him on those romantic moon lit nights) may also be just another fat guy with 2 chins wiping the egg off his face.
This week, The Born to Run Governor held a 2 hour press conference where he said I’m sorry more than a dozen times.
What’s he sorry about?
His lap band too tight?
His see food – eat food diet too restrictive?
The size of his head causing a gravitational pull on the Hudson River creating unsafe conditions for fisherman?
Nope.
Christie is sorry that he didn’t know. Christie is sorry his people didn’t tell him. Christie is sorry nobody stopped the traffic atrocity. Christie is sorry his advisors allegedly took it upon themselves to shut down 3 lanes of the GWB, the busiest bridge in America.
The end result is traffic, bedlam, frayed nerves, angry life threatening gridlock.
The best phrase in news: WHO KNEW WHAT AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT.
The Republican party is a mess. It’s Tea Party extremists and fiscal polarization. History dictates that a Republican should easily sweep into the White House in 2016 following 8 straight years of Obama.
And with Republicans scrambling like Wimbledon ball boys to find a viable candidate, Christie was the lead horse in a stampede of one.
But then came Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Christie is fighting to just NOT look like a liar.
It starts in the Summer of 2013.
Christie, a red governor, wins a landslide in a blue state.
That’s like “Ass Kickin Hot Taco Sauce” being endorsed by the APNGB (Association of People with No Gall bladders)
It just doesn’t happen.
But it does happen.
Apparently the traffic tie up is political pay back against a nationally obscure mayor, a tiny politician on the landscape of who is that guy, a who-cares-civic leader from a where is that town again?
When the mayor didn’t endorse the gigantic candidate with the worst body fat index west of the Hudson, apparently there was hell to pay.
The lack of an endorsement doesn’t sit well with a Governor whose suits are produced by tent manufacturing plants in Indonesia.
In a move straight out of the Sopranos’ “pay back is a bitch hand book”, this email chain is discovered.
One of Christie’s deputy chiefs of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, sent an August 13 email to David Wildstein, Christie’s high school friend and appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, saying “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
Wildstein replied, “Got it.”
Game. Set….
Match?
Not so fast.
The question is what did the titanic Governor know and when did he know it before his staff sailed his gubernatorial ship into an ice berg.
The email precipitated a four-day traffic holocaust that saw four lanes on GWB traffic condensed down to one.
Officials claimed it was a toll booth study.
It was a Toll Booth Study the same way a colonoscopy is sexy.
It was political pay back. Plain and simple.
Instead of hurting a mayor who exercised his American right to choose, the Christie camp allegedly slapped the collective face of thousands of commuters who simply tried to cross a bridge.
It caused 4 hour traffic jams. People were angry and stressed and missed work and soccer practice. One 91-year-old woman died while waiting for an ambulance that would never come.
What started as a faux traffic study quickly turned into a gigantic middle finger to americans and a slap in the face to commuters who didn’t want to “fah ged ah boud it”
If true, this is not just a chapter in good old-fashioned good ole boy politics. This was an unthinkable abuse of public power.
So with the Governor’s girth weighing mightily on his massive political future, this week, the collapsing neutron star of politics dragged his size 64 husky to the Fort Lee City Hall.
Christie told Mayor what’s his name; sorry.
Then he faced the cameras for a 2 hour onslaught of Hey Gov. What did you know and when did you know it?
How did he do?
Unclear at this moment. It’s like having unprotected sex. You don’t know what you’re gonna get for a few weeks.
The late night comics loved the story.
So did the Sunday morning news shows.
“N.J. Governor Takes Responsibility” was the headline on ABC.
Contributor Matthew Dowd said “this is uncharted territory. He was the pre-season favorite that could breach the divide in the Republican Party. He was the light house, he was a safe harbor. Now there is a question.”
Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist countered; “He was the front runner in an invisible primary, because nobody else is running, yet. He was the fix it candidate, after hurricane Sandy, and now there’s a controversy. His brand is tarnished. He won an election in a blue state and he picked up women and Hispanics and he was raising money. Now he will raise questions. I can’t believe a deputy chief on his staff shutdown a huge bridge, this isn’t the Mississippi River Bridge, this is the George Washington Bridge.”
Former Obama White House Senior Advisor David Plouffee said “When we worked in the white house, we did everything saying how will this affect the President. If it was important we ran it by him. But he wouldn’t have been so strong in that press conference had he known. I still think there are more shoes to drop. There will be more investigations by the D.O.J. and the news media. I think there will be more to turn up here.
Republican Representative, Adam Kinzinger said “he took the bull by the horns. He fired staffers. If he comes out untarnished, this might set him up for 2016.”
As a famous general once said. “battle lines are drawn. only time will tell.”
life’s crazy™