Today's source material:
Christie helped himself with his press conference, putting on a sincere performance that matched Bill Clinton’s best escapes from his near-death scandals in the 1990s. So he may yet stay alive. He might consider going on the offensive, and promising, for example, never to close national monuments during budget stalemates, excuse rogue bureaucrats in the IRS, or provide phony alibis for negligent agents of his national-security team when an embassy comes under fire.
The only way out for Christie's real scandal is to focus on made up phony scandals, STAT! The wingnut reaction, below the fold.
If Christie survives this fiasco (and I really don't care if he does, or not), then the Tea Party needs to have a "Come to Jesus" sit-down with Tubby, and lay down the ground-rules he needs to OBEY if he wants any Conservative support whatsoever in 2016.
To wit:
1. You (Christie) will cease attacking the Tea Party.
2. You will speak glowingly of the Tea Party, and support Constitutional liberty.
3. You will cease your immature sniping at Sen. Rand Paul. NOW.
4. You will pledge - on the record - to dismantle ObamaCare if elected.
5. You will impede, obstruct, and damage efforts to implement ObamaCare in NJ.
6. You will vocally criticize this President and his abuses of power. Frequently.
Christie is a bully, and like all bullies, he only understands a bigger stick aimed at his own, fat head.
If he refuses...OK. Whatever. Just get ready to be maimed in the primaries by Paul, Rubio, and Cruz as they discuss "Bridge-Gate" over and over and over and over...
Want to be President in 2016, Tubby? Then start kissing Tea Party butt.
Pucker-up!
Eww.
Why Hayward, the author, had to include "Iran-contra" [sic] in this mess is a mystery to me. Messieurs Casey, Poindexter, and especially LtC Oliver North saw their duty and DID IT to protect OUR hemisphere from furthering the Castro-Communist Daniel Ortega and his murderous Sandanistas. Apples and oranges.
Sadly, we have forgotten what REAL Men DO. They were "Borked".
As for Governor Christie, he surely sounded sincere in his explanation and apology, but as those THOUSANDS of angry phone calls came into his office for FOUR days, how could he NOT know? He doesn't read the newspaper or watch his local evening news? If so, he is toast, an incompetent CEO who should never hold national office. I have always told my staff, "I don't like surprises". Anyone who perpetrated or knew that bad behavior was happening was fired on the spot.
At least, the GOP may now be safe from the corpulent, bilious blowhard.
I was VERY disappointed that DOCTOR Krauthammer last night didn't even broach the issue of Christie's contentious attitude and bullying (call it what you want) results from the trickle down of Executive arrogance to senior staff. Thus endeth the lesson, except for ♛ King Barry the Worst ♛ of course!
Real men send advanced weaponry to Iran, which is totally our friend and ally.
p.s. Who is president of Nicaragua today?
The author's analysis (no doubt without meaning to) plays into the hands of the Democrats and helps to 'justify' the bias of the lying, leftist, lapdog media.
The tribe has one simple rule: clap louder.
I was really looking forward to kicking Christie's ass on the playing field. Maybe that is playing with fire, but I seriously welcome a straight-up head-to-head RINO vs. TEA bout. We need to get this [stuff] settled and get ourselves aligned (on TEA terms, of course...haha), but, the RINO champion tore his ACL in pre-season.
His fans will point out that it wasn't Christie's RINO squishiness that brought him down - and they will be right.
Who is Christie's backup? Jeb? Make it happen!
This is a ridiculous post ... nothing more than wishful thinking by the hard right that hates moderate Republicans more than it hates Democrats.
Name a time when a second level staffer sank the Governor of a state when the Governor had no knowledge or involvement in whatever he or she did, and there was zero cover-up by that Governor? Can't think of any? Cuz there ain't.
In fact, I would say that Christie helped himself a great deal yesterday in his presser by accepting responsibility, acting decisively, and made zero attempts to minimize or deflect the blame for the bad behavior of his staff. Totally unlike 99% of the elected politicians of today in either party, including Tea Partiers.
Unless someone comes up with a smoking gun that proves Christie was involved, this issue will go down the memory hole after this week ... except for the part about the voters actually loving it when a politician acts like a stand-up guy and not like the usual politician-weasel.
It was a dream-come-true for Christie!
The scandals you claim Americans can forgive are forgiven when done by the left because they are not covered. I'm not a Christy fan, but how long and how ferocious the coverage will be might be an object lesson is why the right is in so much trouble---we don't have the press as an unpaid propaganda arm.
What about Fox?
Fox rapidly approaching MSM status. It is no longer the rogue ideologue but now the savvy player.
Only the simple minded point to Fox as a "propaganda arm" of the right.
The morning show competes directly with Today Show and Good Morning America. The evening lineup isn't news, it's some opinion people that are arrogant and self-centered (O'Reilly), eye-candy best viewed on mute (Kelley), boring and repetitive (Hannity) and almost good (Van Susteren).
Just because they present a different side of the story from CNN, ABC Nightly News and the other outlets doesn't make them a "propaganda arm".
Ah, they're a bunch of RINOs. Talk radio?
I wish some of them would go away - they aren't helping the conservative brand.
Michael Savage and Mark Levin, I'm talking to you.
But Rush, what about Rush?
I was a Rush 24x7 member until he came out with his tea and that was all he talked about. I cancelled because I refused to pay him money to listen to commercials about his product. Seems that's all he does these days is hawk product between commercial breaks.
Ha ha, the only people left advertising on Rush's show are the people behind his (ha ha ha ha!) branded tea?
Not only are republicans in washington pushing candidates who conservatives disagree with on seminal issues ... NOW they seem to be pushing candidates who actively despise conservatives. They become heroes in direct proportion to how vocal and obnoxious they are in the expression of their dislike.
But they are the pros .... we're amateurs ...
What could go wrong?
Michele Bachmann? Sarah Palin? Allen West? Louie Gohmert? Steve King? Ted Cruz?
I'd add Sharrrron Angle, Ken Buck, Christine O'Donnell, Richard Mourdock, and Todd Akin to the list, but, well, those were things that went right for us!
Christie engaged a pressroom full of moonbats and emerged squeaky-clean...perhaps even improved. That alone should place him near or at the top in any pragmatic GOP assessment.
The medium IS the message fellas.
Christie's best day ever!
I agree that this is disturbing and reflects badly on Christie. The media don't seem to care when a Dem is playing hardball. The Clintons were incredibly vindictive back in the 90s - travelgate and "bimbo eruptions" to name but a few of the many scandals.
Bimbo eruptions and "travelgate" were vindictive scandals?
Christi's cones are worse than Obama targeting people via the IRS? In what world? Lois Lerner and cohorts weren't mid level civil servants, note who has "resigned" from the IRS. I don't want Christi after his kiss up to Obama, so I couldn't care less, but making some traffic jams in September equivalent to election fraud and using people's IRS applications as a cudgel are not even in the same dimension.
Lane closures=four dead in Benghazi? Lane closures=Fast n' Furious and thousands of dead Mexicans and a U.S. Border agent? Lane closures = IRS First Amendment harassment? The author needs to spend less time in D.C.
My fake scandals are so big, they trump reality!
He's the candidate the liberals want us to have.
Enough said.
Oh sure! Please oh please do not nominate Ted Cruz! That would hurt my liberal sensibilities and make me very mad and very scared. For realz!
After he french kissed Obama on the beach he had "gone over" as far as I'm concerned. I don't want a candidate dripping in Obama mucus.
Um. I think you have "french kiss" confused with something else.
I take a backseat to no one in my contempt for the fat tub of goo from New Jersey. I'll never vote for him no matter how much Conservative Inc. tells me I must stop whoever the liberal democrats run in 2016. That said, this is a big fat nothing that will be forgotten in a week. If anything, it will help him. The fruitcakes on the Left like the parade of freaks on MSNBC will probably be driven mad (more mad?) by it, thus endearing Christie to a lot of normal people.
"Normal people" people hate everything that the left likes, which is why 2012 ended up the way it did.
The closest comparison is Obama shutting down everything he could find during the govt shutdown, even things that weren't shuttable. Yet the leftists just cackled at that.
Freakin' MSM didn't cover the scandal of the government being shut down during the government shutdown!
Yes, it is a laugher to watch the MSM devote so much air time to this craven little act of political vengence when Benghazi, IRS, NSA and the rest of the stink emanating from the Obama Administration is treated like side stories with very little to no airtime. BUT, this still does not make this action right. In this one vengefull act, Republicans showed they can be just as craven, nasty, and vengeful toward the general public as the Democrats. It should not be part of the Republican brand...EVER.
Um. Too late.