Over the weekend, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie put out possibly
the lamest attack memo that has ever been seen, going after former Port Authority executive David Wildstein for a range of offenses including:
• As a 16 year-old kid, he sued over a local school board election.
• He was publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior.
Christie was targeting Wildstein because Wildstein
claimed on Friday that he had evidence showing Christie knew about the Fort Lee lane closures while they were happening. That claim must have Christie really panicked, because I can't think of any other explanation for why he put together such a ridiculous memo.
Even if Christie hadn't included the attacks on Wildstein's high school days, the memo would have been a laugher. For example, to make the case that Wildstein is a bad, bad person, Christie cited a Bergen Record article published in 2012. The headline of that article?
Ex-blogger is Governor Christie's eyes, ears inside the Port Authority
Moreover, in the article itself, Christie's spokesman lavishes praise upon Wildstein. If that's supposed to be an indictment of Wildstein, isn't it also an indictment of Christie?
More on Chris Christie's high school smears below the fold.
But even though that would have been dumb enough on its own, Christie still went ahead and made the high school attack. The mere fact that he'd bring up high school is bizarre and reeks of desperation, but it also raises a question: If Christie thinks David Wildstein is such a bad guy because he was he got accused of being deceptive by his social studies teacher and because he sued over a school board election, then why did his Christie decide to hire him for such an important job? After all, they were high school classmates; it's not like these character defects should be surprises to Christie—if they are in fact character defects.
Well, as it turns out, it doesn't appear that Christie's attack was entirely accurate. According to the previously mentioned article about Wildstein in the Bergen Record:
At 16, he unsuccessfully sued to get on the ballot for the county Republican Committee. A year later, while he was still in high school, Wildstein ran for the local school board, even though he was not old enough by law to occupy the seat . He generated 37 votes — and a minor controversy.
His high school social studies teacher publicly accused Wildstein of duping him into signing an endorsement letter that later appeared in the local newspaper. The pair later issued a joint statement calling it “basically a misunderstanding.”
So the lawsuit doesn't appear to have involved the school board—it was about getting on the county Republican committee, and the social studies teacher issued a joint statement with Wildstein after making the initial accusation. (Ironically, during high school Christie
considered suing his school board to prevent a better baseball player from transferring to his school and taking his starting position.)
I'm not trying to defend Wildstein here, but if Christie is so freaked out that he's misrepresenting easily verifiable facts about Wildstein, he's really got to be pretty freaked out. And that means in all likelihood there's going to be plenty more come out of this story, so don't even think about putting away that popcorn.