This blockbuster article written by Alec MacGillis from the New Republic chronicles Chris Christie's rise to power. This is a long read but well worth understanding the ruthless players and the unscrupulous tactics that enabled Christie"s rise to power in New Jersey. It's Game of Thrones meets the Sopranos, only more frightening because it's real.
From Alec MacGillis:
"Has there ever been a political reversal of fortune as rapid and as absolute as the one just experienced by Chris Christie? At warp speed, the governor of New Jersey has gone from the most popular politician in the country to the most embattled; from the Republicans’ brightest hope for 2016 to a man with an FBI target on his back. One minute, he was releasing jokey vanity videos starring Alec Baldwin and assorted celebrity pals; the next, he was being ridiculed by his lifelong idol, Bruce Springsteen. Mere weeks ago, Christie was a straight-talking, corruption-busting everyman. Now, he is a liar, a bully, a buffoon.
What is remarkable about this meltdown is that it isn’t the result of some deep secret that has been exposed to the world, revealing a previously unimagined side to the candidate. Many of the scandals and mini-scandals and scandals-within-scandals that the national media is salivating over have been in full view for years. Even the now-infamous Bridgegate was percolating for months before it exploded into the first major story of the next presidential race."
http://www.newrepublic.com/...
Bonus read:
Paul Mulshine is an old school conservative columnist at the Newark Star-Ledger who has been on Christie's case all along. In his latest column, he travelled to Fort Lee to view first hand the infamous lanes that have brought Christie and his devilish crew down. He exposes the fundamental lie that Fort Lee has designated lanes:
"Jimmy Buffett has a song called "That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It."
Our governor seems to have taken that advice to heart as regards the Bridgegate scandal. Chris Christie seems to have settled on a two-pronged defense strategy that’s he’s going to stick to.
The first prong is to insist that he had no knowledge of plans to cut local access to the George Washington Bridge before Sept. 9 of last year, when the closure began. Here’s how he put it in that interview last week with Eric Scott of NJ 101.5 FM: "The question is did I have any knowledge of this beforehand and the answer is no."
Nice move. With it, the governor set the bar low. He’s trying to convince us that as long as no one can prove he was involved in the planning, then he’s off the hook.
But then there’s the cover-up. There he’s sticking to a story that is frankly incredible. To see just how incredible, I made a trip the other day to the scene of the crime.''
http://www.nj.com/...