Quotesoftheday postedat8:31

Quotes of the day

posted at 8:31 pm on January 10, 2014 by Allahpundit

New documents related to a traffic jam planned by a member of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) staff show for the first time how furiously Christie’s lieutenants inside the Port Authority worked to orchestrate a coverup after traffic mayhem engulfed Fort Lee last year.

Inside the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Christie’s top appointees neglected furious complaints from Fort Lee’s police chief as well as from angry rush-hour commuters. One woman called asking why the agency was “playing God with people’s jobs.”

The Republican governor’s appointees instructed subordinates to stonewall reporters who were asking questions. They even ordered up an actual “traffic study” to chronicle the impact and examine whether closing the lanes permanently might improve traffic flow. The study’s conclusion: “TBD.”

***

Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye wrote an impassioned email to the general manager of the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 13, arguing that lane closures that spiraled into a major scandal this week were illegal…

“This hasty and ill-advised decision has resulted in delays to emergency vehicles. I pray that no life has been lost or trip of a hospital- or hospice-bound patient delayed,” he wrote. He added: “I believe this hasty and ill-advised decision violates Federal Law and the laws of both States.”

“To be clear,” Foye declared, “I will get to the bottom of this abusive decision which violates everything this agency stands for; I intend to learn how PA process was wrongfully subverted and the public interest damaged to say nothing of the credibility of this agency.”

***

In less than 24 hours, the big three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they’ve allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service controversy. Since the story broke on Wednesday that aides to the New Jersey governor punished a local mayor’s lack of endorsement with a massive traffic jam, ABC, CBS and NBC have responded with 34 minutes and 28 seconds of coverage. Since July 1, these same networks managed a scant two minutes and eight seconds for the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups.

***

“When I read that quote, Joe, about ‘who cares about those kids, they voted for the other guy.’ The first thing that came to my mind was that’s exactly how Sunnis would talk about Shiites or Shiites would talk about Sunnis in Baghdad or Beirut,” Friedman told host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday.

Friedman drew a comparison to conditions that plunged Lebanon into civil war, saying the messages are “sick.”

“The Lebanese civil war started in 1975 when a school bus got shot up,” Friedman said. “And I think that’s a sign of how — sometimes you need to read a quote like that to realize how far we’ve descended, how deep the polarization has become. These aren’t fellow citizens, these aren’t fellow New Jerseyans: They are the enemy. That’s really sick.”

***

Do you have to believe the governor knowingly has said things that aren’t true?

I think when he has had previous press conferences, it’s hard to believe he didn’t have some knowledge … in some way. After the stuff started coming out about some phony traffic study? Come on, you knew this was bullshit. You should’ve been saying this back then.

Do you believe that the governor directly instructed that these lanes be shut down?

No. But at the very least, the least that could have happened is he created this climate about – that he has: We destroy our enemies. Alleged enemies. In other words, anybody that … [hasn’t] agreed with us 100 percent is an enemy, and has to be stamped out.

***

Christie says he awoke Wednesday morning, went to the gym and then got a call from an aide about a report in a New Jersey newspaper with the bombshell allegations about his aides.

He was “blindsided” and “shocked,” saying it was all new to him.

Then came this revelation:

“I haven’t had a lot of sleep the last two nights, and I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching.”

Two nights?

If Christie found out about the emails a day before he spoke to the media, what kept him up the first night?

***

There’s another question besides that. This aide of his that he fired, the woman who sent the e-mail: “Okay, time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.” The fact that that meant what it meant means that there is a culture there. If I, in my normal day, let’s say I got an e-mail: “Okay, time for traffic problems.” I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with that. But somebody did. They knew exactly what that meant. That, to me, is quite telling, on both ends. The aide sends the e-mail, and the recipient of the e-mail knew what to do with it. Okay, time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.

Okay, well, what kind of stuff like that went on before that that was essentially the education? ‘Cause I doubt there was ever a meeting, “Look, there may be a day when we’ll send you an e-mail, and it’ll say ‘Time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.’ What that means is, you close down three lanes or two lanes for a month and you cause all kinds of traffic so that we can end up blaming it on the mayor there.” I doubt that meeting was ever held.

So what the e-mail means is, whoever sent it — well, the woman that sent it and the recipient knew that that means the mayor of Fort Lee is a scumbag and it’s time to get even with this scumbag, and we’re gonna pay this scumbag back by ruining traffic in his town. So there’s a culture there. Eventually somebody will get on to that.

***

Gridlockgate — has anyone called it that yet? — is at the top of the scandal scale. It sounds like the kind of thing Nixon’s more reckless operatives might have tried, but at least they confined their mischief to their political enemies. Christie’s political hatchet-wielders directed their mischief in a manner that disrupted the lives of thousands of ordinary citizens entirely removed from and blameless in the partisan conflicts of the state’s political class…

These scandals are more consequential to American government than abusing the placement of traffic cones for a few days, and it would be good if Republicans had a candidate in 2016 able to make the comprehensive case about the systematic corruption at the heart of government today. But it is harder for Christie to make this case now, having handed his enemies a cheap retort.

***

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 54% of Likely New Jersey Voters believe it’s at least somewhat likely that Christie was aware that traffic lanes onto the George Washington Bridge were being closed as retaliation for the mayor of Fort Lee’s refusal to support the governor’s reelection…

Fifty-six percent (56%) of New Jersey voters believe Christie should resign if it is proven that he approved of retaliation against an elected official who refused to support him. Just 29% disagree, while 15% are not sure…

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of all voters in the state say they are less likely to vote for Christie to be president in 2016 because of the Fort Lee incident. Fourteen percent (14%) are more likely to vote for him. Another 39% say the incident will have no impact on their voting decision.

***

Tags: 2016, bridge, Chris Christie, fort lee, kelly, President, republican, scandal, traffic

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Quotesoftheday postedat10:41

Quotes of the day

posted at 10:41 pm on January 9, 2014 by Allahpundit

Six New Jersey residents have filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Chris Christie, the state of New Jersey, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and others over traffic jams in September…

The plaintiffs want it certified as a class action.

***

CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin said there was a lot still to unravel regarding communications between the parties and how the decision to disrupt traffic was made.

“That question will be very important for Paul Fishman,” Toobin said of the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey…

Fishman’s office is working with the FBI’s public corruption unit to see if any federal laws were broken, a law enforcement source told CNN.

***

Chris Christie is a favorite among deep-pocketed Wall Street donors for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. But the New Jersey governor’s involvement in a major scandal over lane closures on the world’s busiest bridge could threaten to cool some of that support…

The concern, as one donor who’s supported Christie put it, is that the actions by the Christie aides “is environmental. He created an environment where that could happen.”…

One senior financial services industry executive said support is not yet wavering for Christie but could if the scandal is not cleaned up fast.

“Everyone is looking at how he handles it,” said this person, who declined to be identified by name in order to speak candidly about Christie. “They are not as concerned about the scandal itself, assuming he didn’t actually know anything about it, but about the management of it. Can he tidy it up neatly and decisively. If he can, great. If not you will see people waver.”

***

Here’s the problem with that tack (with the acknowledgment that given Christie’s ambition, it’s the only approach he could possibly take): If ANYTHING comes out that suggests that he had any sort of involvement in ANY way with the closures of the lanes, he is done for. He left no wiggle room for himself. None. He also insisted that this episode was anomalous in his administration — repeatedly rejecting the idea that he was a bully or fostered a bullying atmosphere within his senior staff…

This is in the early stages, not the late ones, and Christie’s strong denials on Fort Lee and broader dismissal of the idea of a bullying culture mean that if incidents come to light that contradict those denials, they are even more problematic to Christie and his future than they would have been a week ago.

***

By admitting that he didn’t know anything about it, the governor admits to allowing a rogue political operation to operate underneath him. Given how cavalier these aides were about this infraction and how small the political stakes, it’s hard to imagine that in bigger instances at least some other gambits weren’t tried. If you are caught firing your six-shooter willy-nilly around the house at fruit flies, there’s a pretty good chance you’re behaving recklessly because you’ve become habituated to the recklessness and it isn’t your first time. This offered another moment in which Christie’s story seemed ripe for puncturing. He seemed confused at how on earth anything like this could be possible. That would be a hard posture for any politician to maintain, especially one with Christie’s reputation for political fortitude.

As this story unfolds, we’ll see if this was an isolated incident that grew in a culture that was otherwise hostile to such low behavior or whether this was a part of a broader pattern. At the very least, this will complicate Christie’s efforts to sell himself in the future as a hands-on manager.

***

Democrats predictably condemned the New Jersey governor after a bombshell report Wednesday tied one of his top staffers to a burgeoning scandal that’s already been dubbed “Bridge-gate.” More notable was the dearth of Republicans who rose to Christie’s defense — and, privately, the schadenfreude expressed by some of them that a man who’s never been shy about taking shots at others was suddenly on the receiving end…

“All these people who feel like he’s bullied and he’s put them in a horse-collar hold … will feel free to say, ‘See, I told you so,’” said one Republican who has worked with Christie.

That sense of glee from detractors “is going to be worse than they anticipate,” said the Republican, adding that local critics but also detractors in some of the early presidential states might now feel emboldened to take shots at a man who 24 hours ago was seen by many as the most likely GOP standard-bearer in 2016.

***

Republican media strategist Rick Wilson, who worked on Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign, argued that Christie “goes out of his way to be a dick to other Republicans” — and will reap the payback if his fortunes start to head south.

“You’re going to see conservatives returning the favor he gave them over the last year. There’s no love lost between Chris Christie and conservatives. I don’t expect them to be in love with him, and he doesn’t want their love,” said Wilson. “But if you want to win a GOP primary, you better find a way to get there.”…

Added one GOP strategist: “He has gotten way, way ahead of his supply lines in terms of national exposure. His straight talk reputation now runs the risk of slipping into a bad place where voters grow tired of his style and this kind of drama.”

***

I’m ambivalent on his run for the Presidency. But I don’t see him getting that far for the very reasons underlying this issue — he and his staff operate as divas.

I have had Congressmen, Governors, and the staffers of Congressmen and Governors tell me horror stories about dealing with Christie’s people. All of them seem to dread it…

This was always going to be Christie’s problem. People want a winner. And they want an a**hole. But they want the person to be their a**hole, not an a**hole who tries to make everyone else his whipping boy.

***

It’s a grotesque Jersey version of the ugly truth that underlies all electoral politics: The primary goal is to win re-election. There’s a reason that the same people who work on political campaigns then work for important jobs in government—it’s largely the same job, with the same boss, and the same goal…

Think of these kinds of careers, and of the callous disregard these people can have for voters and insufficiently loyal politicians (Stepien’s reaction to Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich’s public complaints about the traffic jam was “The mayor is an idiot”), the next time you hear someone describe politics as public service. When you give politicians power—such as the authority to appoint leaders to bi-state public bodies that control basically all the infrastructure in and around New York City and New Jersey—you are handing over tools that they and the many plausible deniers that work for them can and will use to get the boss man re-elected. It is disgusting, and it is predictable. If you want less corruption, give politicians less power.

***

Speaker of the House John Boehner said he believes New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is still a serious contender for 2016 in spite of the scandal surrounding the closing of lanes on the George Washington Bridge last year…

Asked if Christie could still be a top contender if he were to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Boehner said he believes Christie could.

“I think so,” he said. “I think so.”

***

***

***

Tags: 2016, bridge, Chris Christie, fired, fort lee, governor, jersey, kelly, nomination, President, republican, resign

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RushLimbaugh:Whyaren’tChristie’sRINOpalsrushing

Rush Limbaugh: Why aren’t Christie’s RINO pals rushing to his side?

posted at 5:21 pm on January 9, 2014 by Allahpundit

Via the Daily Rushbo, the wildebeest analogy made me chuckle. I think this is more of a shot at RINOs for having poor taste in aligning themselves with Christie in the first place then a shot at them for being cowardly in not backing their guy up in his hour of need, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive. As a noted RINO myself (albeit one who’s skeptical of Christie’s claims of innocence), I’m not sure what any of his allies could have said to defend him yesterday. If your strongest argument for your guy is “well, there’s no proof that he’s involved yet,” you’re probably better off sitting tight and hoping for the best. For what it’s worth, my Twitter timeline this morning was overflowing with praise for Christie from center-righties for his quick firing of Bridget Kelly and extended apologetics at today’s presser. By closing time tomorrow, I’d bet, they’ll have moved on to “it’s old news.” Big-name RINOs will be backing him up before you know it.

Since I needled S.E. Cupp last night for thinking Christie could resign and then rebound to run for president anyway (what?), let me take a swig of what she’s drinking and float this idea: Could Bridgegate have slightly increased the chance of him running as an independent in 2016? Those odds are lo-o-o-ong, but I can kinda sorta imagine a scenario in which Christie becomes so alienated from conservative voters through centrist policy moves, petty scandals, and abrasive anti-Republican rhetoric that he concludes he has no path through the primaries. Scott Walker’s too appealing as a centrist PEU-smashing alternative, the rest of the field’s too strong, he’s too damaged, and so the door is, realistically, closed — as a Republican. As an independent, though, he’d be a player again. He’d get tons of free media from the press, which would find the drama of a paradigm-shifting centrist candidacy irresistible (at first), and he’d probably do okay with fundraising between Christie loyalists in the national GOP donor class, Wall Street players eager to see a moderate local guy win the White House (Mike Bloomberg foremost among them), and disaffected small donors who are looking for a new Perot to end “business as usual” in politics. If Bridgegate is followed by a few more setbacks and his star starts to dim inside the GOP, his best (longshot) bet might be to jump in as an indie and declare the age of the two-party system over or whatever. He might not win — in fact, he almost certainly wouldn’t — but launching a viable third-party candidacy would be a major achievement in its own right and doubtless highly flattering to his giant ego. And it’d be true to his personal brand, which isn’t really Republican anymore anyway. When he talks national politics, you’re more likely to hear him inveigh against gridlock and “Washington” than against Obama and the Democrats. If he won the GOP nomination, he’d run in the general election as an independent for all intents and purposes anyway. If he starts to fade over the next two years with the party, I wonder if that’s the route he’ll go.

Tags: bridge, Chris Christie, democratic, establishment, fort lee, jersey, kelly, Republicans In Name Only, Rush Limbaugh, traffic

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Christieon“Bridgegate”:Iknewnothing.HaveI

Christie on “Bridgegate”: I knew nothing. Have I mentioned I knew nothing?

posted at 6:11 pm on January 8, 2014 by Allahpundit

Obama said the same thing about the IRS targeting tea partiers, of course. To which conservatives replied: That’s no excuse. Even if he didn’t order the targeting, bad behavior coordinated by multiple subordinates typically doesn’t happen unless they have reason to believe it’ll be tolerated up the chain. Usually, when they play dirty, they’re taking some sort of cue from their boss to do so, whether in broad ideological terms or direct marching orders. Does the same reasoning apply to Team Christie?

His defense, I take it, will be that it would have been madness for a sitting governor running for reelection to greenlight a tactic this petty when he was on his way to a landslide. It could only hurt him. (Of course, the same was true for Nixon and Watergate.) But that’s also the case for the staffers who ordered the bridge lanes closed — it could only hurt their boss to do so, and yet, for some unknown reason, they felt compelled to. Would they have dared to take a risk that huge without his approval, tacit or not?

Gov. Chris Christie has responded Wednesday afternoon to email exchanges made public earlier in the day linking a top aide to the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal that’s been under investigation.

“What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better. This behavior is not representative of me or my Administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions,” the governor said in a statement.

And so, as predicted, we’ll be moving next to the “Kelly resigns” phase of the scandal followed by the media feeding frenzy over whether Christie himself had a role in the lane closings. I thought it’d be over in a week, but Jersey Democrats are crowing about laws having been broken and Jersey papers are now running stories like this:

Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department.

The woman later died, borough records show…

Although he did not say her death was directly caused by the delays, [EMS coordinator Paul] Favia noted that “paramedics were delayed due to heavy traffic on Fort Lee Road and had to meet the ambulance en-route to the hospital instead of on the scene.”

Joshua Green thinks the scandal’s a big deal because it damages Christie’s image as a “nice jerk” who fights for the little guy. That’s basically right, even though I doubt it’ll have legs if it can’t be proved that he endorsed the lane closings himself. The question with Christie is figuring out where his abrasiveness springs from. Is it from righteous indignation at how public-employee unions loot taxpayers or does he just get off on pushing people around? The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but the more evidence there is of the latter, the better Scott Walker looks as a righteously indignant yet mercifully soft-spoken alternative. A lot of undecided “somewhat conservative” voters in 2016 will be measuring how much good they expect President Christie to do against how aggravating, and exhausting, it would be to put up with him day after day for four years. This adds some weight to that second arm of the scale.

Update: Good point:

@allahpundit so the right will pass on Christie over traffic, but take Walker who is being investigated for campaign violations?

— Max Twain (@MaxTwain) January 8, 2014

Second look at Rubio?

Tags: 2016, bridge, Chris Christie, fort lee, george washington bridge, misled, New Jersey, republican

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Uhoh:E-mailslinktopChristieaideto

Uh oh: E-mails link top Christie aide to GWB lane-closing controversy

posted at 11:21 am on January 8, 2014 by Allahpundit

I … did not expect the first 2016-related scandal of the year to involve lane closings on a bridge, but that’s blogging for you. Some days it’s the president and secretary of state opposing a key military operation for nakedly self-interested political reasons, other days it’s staffers for the (very) early GOP frontrunner trying to screw a political opponent by sticking him with traffic problems. Spice of life, my friends.

This is a rare scandal story in that, I suspect, it’ll unite lefties and tea partiers in outrage in the name of taking down a common opponent. Only temporarily, though: If the big guy goes on to win the nomination, partisan loyalties will turn this into a nothingburger on the right overnight.

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Bridget Anne Kelly, one of three deputies on Christie’s senior staff, wrote to David Wildstein, a top Christie executive at the Port Authority, on Aug. 13, about three weeks before the closures. Wildstein, the official who ordered the closures and who resigned last month amid the escalating scandal, wrote back: “Got it.”

Other top Christie associates mentioned in or copied on the email chain, all after the top New York appointee at the authority ordered the lanes reopened, include David Samson, the chairman of the agency; Bill Stepien, Christie’s re-election campaign manager and the newly appointed state GOP chairman; and Michael Drewniak, Christie’s spokesman.

The theory, which isn’t clearly confirmed by the e-mails, is that Christie’s office ordered the lane closings as retaliation against the mayor of Fort Lee for refusing to endorse him. Once the lanes closed, traffic in Fort Lee would back up — for hours at a time — and the mayor would be under siege from the locals. Why Christie would have cared about anyone’s endorsement when he was consistently up 20+ points in the governor’s race at the time, I have no idea. But if you’re looking for evidence that the guy, or at least his staff, enjoys bullying people even when there’s little to be gained by it, there you go.

This bit simply must be excerpted:

In one exchange of text messages on the second day of the lane closures, Wildstein alludes to messages the Fort Lee mayor had left complaining that school buses were having trouble getting through the traffic.

“Is it wrong that I’m smiling,” the recipient of the text message responded to Wildstein. The person’s identity is not clear because the documents are partially redacted for unknown reasons.

“No,” Wildstein wrote in response.

“I feel badly about the kids,” the person replied to Wildstein. “I guess.”

“They are the children of Buono voters,” Wildstein wrote, making a reference to Barbara Buono, the Democratic candidate for governor, who lost to Christie in a landslide in November.

Wildstein resigned from the Port Authority last month after reporters first started sniffing around the lane closings. He’s the source of these e-mails, apparently, having handed them over when he was subpoenaed by a state panel that’s investigating, whereupon some Christie enemy on the panel presumably handed them over to the papers. The next step will be for Kelly to resign (as well as everyone cc’d on her messages?) followed by the requisite Christie statement of ignorance and disappointment. Then we move to phase two, in which the media tries to prove that Christie himself knew all along or even ordered the lane closings. Hard to believe a scandal this petty could become big news with legs, but evidence of the governor having had a direct role in it would keep it going. There’s much truth to this:

Bridge story will likely be very big – bored press w/2016 fever, link to competitive NYC media market, & investigation creating paper trail

— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) January 8, 2014

After an hour of Twittergazing, I see that camps are already forming. Christie fans think any “scandal” involving something as trivial as lane closings is DOA and that this is politics as usual in the tri-state area. Compared to some of Obama’s sins, it’s less than nothing. Before much longer, some will inevitably adopt this line and argue that Christie’s willingness to screw an opponent for crossing him is exactly what Washington needs to Get Things Done. Christie haters think this is a legit scandal because it demonstrates the smallness of the man and how little it takes to get him to abuse his power. If, after the IRS scandal and shutdown theater, you worry about having someone in charge who’d punish innocent people to make life harder for his political enemies, why would you want to elect a guy capable of this sort of vindictiveness? E.g.:

Admit it, conservatives. If this were Rahm Emmanuel, you'd be screaming bloody murder about the "Chicago machine."

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) January 8, 2014

I think the whole thing will fade within a week unless proof emerges that Christie had a bigger role in it. In which case, second look at Marco Rubio?

Tags: bridge, christie, closing, fort lee, kelly, New Jersey, traffic

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