Let’s live-blog this thing…
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
44 Comments
Christie is going to doggedly investigate himself until he gets to the bottom of how he was wronged by himself.
The christie bus is bumping over a lot of bodies being thrown under it.
he is backing up and running over them repeatedly. Especially his Deputy Chief of Staff.
That’s his only play.
Will he be removed from office?
No.
Will this blow over in three months or due to the Next Big Scandal?
Yes.
Dave Vitter is still a senator. I don’t see how Christie fails to survive this.
The difference is that Vitter’s actions have no effect on his constituency. That’s the problem, right there. It’ll be interesting to see how many settlements have to come from this. Given the delayed ambulance response, I predict at least one.
well she’s female. his disdain for women …
It would be interesting to watch this with a body language expert. “I was blindsided yesterday…” He sure looks like he’s lying through his teeth to me, but I’m not exactly an unbiased party. But I wonder if he knows just how screwed he is or is still in denial to some extent.
Mayor of Ft. Lee should agree to the meeting and not show. Radio silence and all that.
“Mistakes are made.” He’s really not trying to take any responsibility for this, aside from a “buck stops here” cop-out. “I had no knowledge”… don’t buy it.
He “understands the nature of the problem”. His statement details the nature of the problem is he was lied to. Thus, it appears only thing jamming the GWB effects is the relationship between Christie and his staff. The people and commerce that depend upon the GWB not a word beyond oops my bad. This was no more than a campaign speech.
“65,000 people work for me, I can’t know what they’re all doing.” He’s trying to conflate he’s senior political staff with random government employees in, like, the Trenton DMV. Please.
Funny, the right wing NEVER considered that excuse relevant to the IRS scandal did they?
I mean President Obama only has to micro-manage 4.4 million people …
Christie is certainly up to that task, … er
I mean ignore the rank hypocrisy.
Christie 2016 …. yea
It was just one of the 65000 people working for him. How big of him to ‘take this action’. Action, action, bi-partisan, action. Bi-partisan.
Called himself a candidate.
Ha! I caught that too.
I’m hearing “I’m not a bully, I am what I am, I do it my way,” a lot.
Did Christie just call himself a maverick?
Please god he didn’t wink at the camera too.
Next thing you know, he’ll be saying, “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”
Nixon: “I am not a crook.”
Christie: “I am not a bully.”
By Sunday Christie will be more of a victim than the people who sat in traffic on the GWB for no reason.
“I’m not a micromanager. When I tell them to bust the rump of some pissant mayor, I don’t ask for details.”
Holy crap, I think we just turned the corner into Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Christie has lost sleep over this for TWO nights? I thought this just broke yesterday.
Would he have been asked for comment before then?
Good thought. But he said earlier that the first he heard was after his workout on wednesday morning and he said again just now that he first heard at 8:50 on wednesday morning.
All that matters to Christie is that he was lied to. He is the victim.
Christie really seems to think he can put this to bed with this press conference.
He’s good. By calling on the press corps by name is he cherry picking?
I thought I heard him say ‘two weeks’ when he referenced back to this incident that he just learned about yesterday am after workout.
We weren’t friends in High School..
no one on my staff had any knowledge until after?
Krispy Kreme is pretty nimble for a bull elephant!
I just got here, but I sure hope he found a woman to blame it all on. Should I wait for it?
Oh, yeah. He did that straight at the top.
He’d better wrap this thing up or we’re going to have to delay the start of the NFL playoff games this weekend.
If he only found out yesterday, why did he have two sleepless nights?
“I am not a bully”? Bullshit.
“Mistakes were made”. Awesome. I have to go to a client meeting, but this is AWESOME.
Okay, I’m tired now.
scary–if this was a ‘ship of state’ I’d be wondering if NJ were figuratively the Titanic…Captain says he doesn’t know what his bridge crew is doing?
I think I’ll start popping popcorn for the Fed investigation..
He sure has mastered that whiney “oh poor me” tone of voice. My heart almost broke for the poor man, but then it’s just another politician’s “I am not a crook” performance.
I’m still afraid this guy is too good at the theater of it all.
If he’s the “serious people’s” anointed for 2016, this quickly disappears. If he’s not, he’s toast and the New York media will heat the flames.
Just keep reminding folks that we are not talking about just any highway bridge, we are talking about the George Washington Bridge. And the dates of closure: September 9-12 2013, including the 12th anniversary of 9/11. Cute. Hopefully too cute.
Christie won re-election by a landslide without the Fort Lee mayor’s endorsement. It reminds me of how Nixon didn’t need the Watergate burglary to win re-election by a landslide.
Exactly. Assholes like Nixon and Christie (and Cheney and Rove and …) do this just because they can and they like it. Nixon’s whole Presidency was exactly like Watergate, once all of the info got out. We’ll find the same with Christie when all is done.
Perhaps only assholes do this sort of crap and maybe they get a thrill out of doing it, but shouldn’t discount why Nixon wanted and felt he needed a landslide win in 1972. He won in 1968 with only 43.4% of the vote; less than 1% ahead of HHH. The dirty tricks planning for 1972 was before it could be known that he would win easily in ’72. May not even have been a landslide if McGovern hadn’t fumbled the VP selection and fewer DINOs hadn’t either endorsed Nixon or sat on their hands that year (sort of like all the NJ DEMs that backed Christie). Landslide wins mean power. DeBlasio should use some of his for good instead of the evil others have used it for.
RIGHT. That similarity has been on my mind.
The most frightening thing I ever heard a public official say was Attorney General Mitchell testifying at the Senate’s Watergate hearings that he personally viewed the prospect of a McGovern Presidency as being so dangerous and harmful to the United States that he viewed ANY action to help Nixon win re-election as clearly justified and in the best interest of the nation. To quote:
“In my mind, the reelection of Richard Nixon, compared to what was on the other side, was so important that I put it in exactly that context.”
This was among the opening salvos during my lifetime of the Republican Party’s change. No longer was the Democratic Party their rival and opponent; instead, it became important for GOP leaders to classify the Dems as illegitimate by definition. When you’ve decided that people are inferior in these ways, you can decide to execute an outrageous witch hunt which results in an unpopular impeachment, or decide that your political opponents are so subhuman that endangering children and killing seniors by blocking bridge traffic is worthwhile, as long as they’re presumed to be Democrats.
And finally, we have the Jersey expert analyst’s commentary.