For the past few months, the Wall Street Journal has been uncovering the story of a traffic jam intentionally manipulated as political revenge. For not supporting New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s re-election campaign, Fort Lee’s mayor apparently paid the price in the form of a massive traffic tie-up engineered by Christie aids and allies at Port Authority. While Christie has denied the charges and New Jersey’s Assembly is still investigating, trove of emails has surfaced, showing Christie aides at the highest levels organizing the payback.
As the accompanying article notes, the first email is the most startling. “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Christie’s Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly says to David Wildstein. The former Port Authority official had a two-word reply: “Got it.” The Journal article delves into the responses and politics of the situation with one email bemoaning the impact on children while another dismisses them as “children of Buono voters.” Christie has yet to comment, and New Jersey politicians vow to press on with their inquiry.
It is ultimately unclear how this scandal will impact Christie on a national and local level. He’s shown a willingness to use and exploit transit for personal gain, but he hasn’t done much to expand or otherwise take responsibility for New Jersey’s rail needs. I think Clyde Haberman had the most astute question on the matter: “What does it say about New Jersey that a Christie aide’s chosen method of political revenge is creating traffic jam?”
27 comments
Two questions on timing.
1) How long would this have gone on if the NY side hadn’t put a stop to it forcibly?
2) How long will it take for Eric to post defending Christie?
Stick a fork in Christie’s political career, and good riddance.
Christie recently put out a statement saying basicly that this happened under his nose & he had no idea. I call bullshit.
He’s screwed either way. If he didn’t know what his aides were doing (which I sincerely doubt) then he’s just as bad a leader. He has know clue what his top aides are doing? And when this first came out late last year, he just dismissed it as so much fluff without an investigation?
What a blowhard. Glad I don’t live in Jersey…
I think if he manages to pin it all on a fall guy, he’ll do fine. Otherwise, I don’t know if he’s toast, but his primary will be slightly more difficult and Hillary Clinton will be able to use it in the general election against him.
Are we talking about the Republikan primary? If he’s toast, he’s toast because he rolled over on gay marriage and made nice with Obama. Being a fascist is just going to endear him to GOP primary voters.
“Being a fascist is just going to endear him to GOP primary voters.”
Lowering marginal tax rates, school choice and allowing people to drink 32 oz. sodas is straight from the Mussolini playbook.
Degrading and retaliating against people who dare to disagree with him is straight from the Mussolini playbook.
The answer to question 2: 17 hours 28 minutes. Longer than I expected.
The meathead governor should be impeach.
They elected him. Let him screw them. Everyone who paid attention knew he was a thin-skinned needle prick all along.
It’s Rudy G all over again.
All true… He’s a petty, lying prick, and he should be recognized as such, but – unfortunately – I’m guessing he’ll survive it all. Because, for reasons that escape me, people “like” him and relate to him and are therefore willing to cut him a great deal of slack.
I’ll try to explane it as best as I can. It’s not relating, rather there are voters who are atracted to the “tough guy” politition. That is until said politition turns there rath on the voters & it has happened inn the recent past & it will continue until the myth is exposed for what it is – an absolute power grab. It’s almost Nixonian if you give it some thaught.
Except Christie has about 18% of Nixon’s intellect (and 300% Nixon’s body weight). But much like Nixon, Christie is now trying to pretend he knew nothing about BridgeGate and that it was all his deputies’ fault.
It’s mostly the American “news” media that adore him for his fake tough guy act. I don’t know that anyone actually likes him.
He was overwhelmingly re-elected. I think plenty of people like him.
A Clinton and Christie 2016 contest would be most interesting. With the GOP going after Clinton turning off voters, the real Christie will come out along the campaign trail and the outcome is near certain.
It means the governor of New Jersey is the biggest criminal currently in American political office. But those of us that have been paying attention already knew this.
You need to look up Rick Scotts background
One aspect of this whole saga I’ve never quite understood: how was tying up traffic a form of revenge against the Fort Lee mayor? A bunch of his constituents suffered in the delays, but the mayor only suffers to the extent that those constituents blame him for the delays. The media coverage laid the blame with the Port Authority from the get-go, so it seems to me the mayor emerged politically unscathed — even if the Christie connection had never emerged. So what sort of vengeance is this? Did Christie’s aides think the press would place the blame on the mayor? Or that it would be a non-story in the media drivers would just assume it was mayor’s fault somehow? Forget the sloppy way it was carried out, I don’t understand how anyone in Christie’s camp thought this was an effective retaliatory tactic in the first place.
Because Christie thinks everyone is as petty and foolish as he is. When you look at the world through angry glasses, everybody seems just as angry.
Not going to defend CC on this. I will say:
1. I’m glad that the media has decided to dust off its investigative operations after a 6 year slumber. It must be exciting for them.
2. I don’t see this as important just because the media wants me to.
Of course you don’t.
It’s poetic justice! He killed a Hudson river crossing. And now a Hudson river crossing is going to kill his political career!
Good one, Jeff! And now he’s blaming his aides and bad-mouthing them to deflect blame. COME ON! Anyone who believes that is likely brain-dead aldready. It reminds me of the time when I was five years old and blamed my two year old sister for something I had done. Such a ridiculous lie only made it worse for me, and I think the same thing is going to happen with CC.
Here’s an astute question for you: what questions does this raise in your mind about Christie’s motivations in killing the ARC project?
Screw New York.