Say It Ain’t So, Chris
In the interest of full disclosure and transparency, I am a New Jersey resident, a Registered Republican, and I want Gov. Christie to run for President. It’s the best way to get him out of the state.
So I am disappointed by the way our distinguished governor is handling the Bridgegate scandal.
What the hell, as he would put it, was he doing at that press conference (1/12/14), anyway? Does he think we are stupid, or something?
He had to be in lala land — and Trenton can never be accused of being mistaken for LA — to be unaware of what his brain trust was up to making Ft. Lee pay for its mayor not supporting the Boss in the election. It’s a given he knew, or should have known, if not before, in nanoseconds later.
Why did he play the idiot, using the Sgt Schultz Defense (“I know nozzin—NOZZIN”) that works in sitcoms about how much fun it was being in a PW camp in Nazi Germany during WWII, reductio ad absurdum in the Land of Silk and Money, but not in New Jersey?
His performance was especially puzzling when we learn the Katzenjammer Kids in his office were cooking up a trial run of traffic as a political statement, falling off their chairs laughing as they plotted a jam outside the house of a rabbi who lit the Hanukah Candles. It could be a scene in the Story of Exodus being rewritten as a musical comedy, with the Governor of New Jersey and a cast of thousands of mayors in the lead roles.
And why was he saying those silly things about hardly knowing a high school classmate named David Wildstein, who was such a stranger he gave him a $150,000 a year job which had no function excepting to be the political commissar at the apolitical Port Authority of New Jersey & New York?
Why this sophistry that continues 167 days after the foul deed of closing down the three lanes at the GWB that created a biblical traffic jam that must have been like the going out of Egypt? Why is he still trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the citizens with this baloney he was kept in the dark?
Secondly, has our governor, who is supposed to be a smart guy, learned nothing from Nixon and his Watergate cock-up?
All he had to do is tell us he was amazed to discover he had two Achilles heels in his inner circle. You can bet your sweet ass those ingrates will never become ambassadors in my administration. They fucked me, and they are history, or words to that effect.
It is so Nixonian of Christie to forget the lessons learned in Stonewalling 101. Folks don’t mind what you do in office as long as you confess and apologize. We are a forgiving people. Take it on your three chins, throw the offenders into the River Passaic, and move on.
Anyway, what is the Remembrance Index for the American people these days — 2.1 weeks?
Thirdly, what is this change of personality since that disastrous press conference, where he played the idiot? This new personality since the news hit the fan about the Ft. Lee fiasco doesn’t become him.
In the annals of political oratory, Chris Christie is remembered for his warning, as the storm bore down on residents ignoring his orders to evacuate, "Get the hell off the beach in Asbury Park. It’s 4:30. You’ve maximized your tan. Get off the beach.” And post-Irene was his even more eloquent, “Get the hell back to the beach.”
This was a man who told a woman voter who tried to nail him as a hypocrite for not sending his kids to public school, “First of all, Gail, it’s none of your business...”
His loudmouth boldness, was a breath of fresh air, as much as it can be in New Jersey where we don’t trust any air we can’t see.
Our bull-in-the-china-shop lately has turned into a bull that sits down and smells the flowers. It is as if the real Chris Christie has been abducted and they sent in a clown. Our Manchurian candidate who might be president some day soon slinks around as quiet as a tick. This low profile makes him seem as guilty as uncharged.
All of this defies political logic and questions the basic assumption that Big Boy, as the other GWB used to call him, has only been stopping off for a nosh in Drumthwacket on his way to the White House.
Putting side all my polls, stats, electoral maps and power points proving Christie can save the Republican Party in 2016, I have come to the conclusion there is something seriously mysterious about the governor’s questionable conduct lately.
I began having my suspicions something was amiss in the 2012 campaign.
In the smoke-filled backroom of the Palisades IHOP, a Christie for President organization was coalescing around America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Veterans of the Rudy for President campaign were planning to use the same magic that worked for Rudy so well in 2008 on Big Boy. The billionaire boys club, led by Home Depot magnate Ken Langone, had their checkbooks ready to roll.
A major problem was the candidate. He was sitting on the fence, like Humpty Dumpty, pondering whether he should run or should he have another double whammo burger with fries and a malt float at Burger King? Or just a nourishing milkshake at McDonald’s?
The race for the roses in the derby called The Republican Presidential Primary already starred nine dwarfs. Nevertheless, the party was ready to nominate anybody not named “Mitt.” But Gov. Christie remained in the stable.
Was this just the usual political gaming in 2012? Drag me, I don’t want to go. Or was underneath this Hamlet on the barricades a real Hamlet?
Was it a case of the presidential bug biting him in the ass in 2012 and he just put some calamine lotion on it? Or was it something deeper?
At the risk of crawling into the governor’s mind, not only unsanitary but a violation of NJ health code, I am going out on a limb here and saying Chris Christie has decided he does not really want to run, or even jog, for president any more?
Based on his behavior in Bridgegate and the first 100 days after he found out, it is as clear as Cassandra’s pre-envision of the fall of Troy (not NY).
Sob!
Okay, mister smart guy, what does Chris Christie really want to be when he grows up?
I will tell you in the second piece of campaign literature tomorrow.
(To be continued)
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Marvin Kitman
Mar. 4, 2014