The Trial of the Century
I’d like to reintroduce to my New Jersey readers, the Governor of New Jersey, a man who has not been widely seen very often in one of the fifty greatest states of the union.
He is the portly fellow (the one in the center) more often seen these days standing behind the man whose whose finger one day may be on the Big Button. Being the second banana, and manager of the phantom transition team has made Chris Christie a rare bird in the state that pays his salary and expenses.
For those who believe one picture, or image as they are known today, is worth 1,680 words (due to inflation), the above is the certified official portrait taken on a recent visit to his native habitat from the seat of power (Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue).
It has not been photoshopped, and copies are being tacked on trees and utility poles, like lost cat posters. Christie-watching is a major state hobby, like bird watching.
This is an especially timely public service as the governor’s presence will be hovering like the Gooodyear Blimp over Jersey Jets and Jersey Giants games in the Meadowlands at the opening of the Bridgegate lane closure trial on Sept. 19.
His Immensity, otherwise known as the Vast Waistband (not to be confused with the Vast Wasteband, a Jersey punk rock group of the same name), is about to become better known as the unindicted super star of the Trial of the Century, if you don’t count the Cosby sex trial later this month.
Never in the history of political turpitude has there been such a weighty question being resolved by a court of justice.
What did our part-time governor know, and when, is the subtext in the bringing to justice two of his most trusted aides who are charged with planning the closing of access to two GWB lanes for a traffic study that was about to create the mother of all traffic jams for five days in September 2013.
His most trusted associates from the third floor of the State House in the Office Intergovernmental Affairs— where they kept the list of 100 top state mayors, targets for good and bad treatment based on their endorsements—- and their high price legal teams will be trying to pin on our busy governor the charge of obvious criminality.
The thrust of their case is that as the chief executive who breakfasted every morning with the Katzenjammer kids, as they were thought of in Trenton, he had to know about whatever they may, or may not, be doing to please the boss and should be taking the fall, not these loyal innocent dupes.
As the people of New Jersey wait with bated breath how the trial will go down, scholars of the Christie administration, will notice that not only has His Rotundity, who is the dodo bird of governors, gained in stature since his absence from the state on national business, but in weight.
This is understandable.
There are two times when people tend to increase intake of calories:
- Under stress
- When unstressed.
In stress-free periods, the governor has been known to kick back and raid the fridge in the kitchens of Drumthwacket for a midnight snack, a quart or two of his favorite ice cream (Howard Johnson’s Original 57 are his all-time favorites, but he is partial these days to pistachio and strawberry).
Carb intake tends to increase directly with the amount of stress, food scientists will tell you. Not only did Gov. Wide Load miss balancing the budget as promised as usual this year, he has become road kill in the state for having shut down construction on state bridges and roadways due to a champion of bipartisanship being unable to work out a bankrupt Transportation Fund deal.
It’s not exactly a carefree activity serving as the Trump transition team manager, either. He must resolve issues like the three cabinet portfolios for Ivanka—Defense, State, Treasury –as the proud father has proposed.
All of which has the Incredible Bulk fighting the battle of the bulge of his life.
I tell you, by the time the trial of the century is over the governor will be the sumo wrestling champion of New Jersey politics.
And where do I stand on His Fatness guilt or inocence in the trial? Waterboarding, or having to listen to The Collected Great Speeches of Rudy Giuliani, both forms of torture, couldn’t get it out of me. Join me in watching the trial of the century with an open and fair mind.
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Marvin Kitman
Sept. 12, 2016
