(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
.
Seems like to know Christie is not to love him, per NYMag:
… Among people who have heard of the scandal, the new survey found 58 percent don’t believe Christie’s claim that he was duped by treacherous aides. And while Americans have learned more about the governor, they don’t like what they see. Christie’s favorability rating is essentially unchanged from a year ago – dropping from 40 percent to 38 percent – but many who previously had no opinion of the governor now dislike him. Thirty-four percent view him unfavorably, compared with 17 percent a year ago…
Details at the link.
There’s a chance Christie could ignore mere polls — they change! it’s a long time till 2016 or an indictment, whichever comes first! — but Jon Chait gleefully reports that “Jennifer Rubin Has Moved on From Romney Worship, Now Worshipping Chris Christie“.
Of course, we can’t be absolutely sure Christie’s toast until Bill “Alway Wrong” Kristol checks in to defend him, but as of this moment his future prospects don’t look so great…
John M. Burt
Open thread, eh? Well, I was thinking mercenary thoughts about how to promote my antiwar novel The Christmas Mutiny, and it occurred to me that the centennial of the Christmas Truce this December is an event of considerable importance. More important than any mere alternate-history novel.
What can we do to mark the 100th anniversary of the day the soldiers played footie instead of fighting? There should be ceremonies at Ypres, of course, and other known truce sites, but we don’t have to go to Europe to commemorate it — what would be a suitable observance?
Chris
38 percent have a favorable opinion still.
Ick.
Hill Dweller
The best part of this scandal is watching Scarborough melt down. His whining, and the subsequent ridicule from the twitter machine, is gold.
Yatsuno
@Chris: 27% plus 11% idiot. Or Repukes afraid to call themselves such.
From one thread down: Grandpa Walnuts haz a sad.
(Also edited to fix my maths.)
Amir Khalid
So three out of five people don’t buy Christie’s story that he was not in charge, which leaves the impression that he was tough to the point of being a thug. Jennifer Rubin aside, what happens now to his tough-guy-in-charge USP*?
*unique selling point
Yatsuno
@Amir Khalid: At this point his next worry is an indictment. Which he will have a very tough time weaseling out of unless he was such an incompetent manager that all of this was happening without his notice. And that doesn’t even come close to passing the smell test.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hill Dweller:
All pain inflicted on the intern killer is, by its very nature, a good thing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yatsuno:
Yeah, but one of his selling points is “I’m this fantastic hands on manger who is fully in control.”
Well, except when it comes to ordering the placing of traffic cones at the GWB toll plaza. Then I’m totally out of the loop.
The parallels with Reagan’s pathetic Iran-Contra dance are staggering. Either Christie is a lying, law breaking asshole, or he’s an incompetent boob. Your call.
divF
@Villago Delenda Est:
Hello ? Is anyone out there ?
Actually, Reagan had door #3 to choose from, which was early-stage dementia. Christie doesn’t have that excuse.
Sitting at the Hartford, CT airport, waiting for the 7 AM flight to Chicago, then home to NorCal. I hate these one-day business trips. Especially if the workday was a holiday (like yesterday).
MattF
Josh Marshall suggests that Christie is going to try the ‘Samson’ defense– bring the whole house down and hope (unlike Samson) to be the lone survivor. So, prepare for ‘I’ve learned my lesson the hard way.’
Fred
My recall, the Reagan defense was, “I didn’t know. It was important that I not know.” Of course Ronnie could flop such lame bullsh*t on the table and get away with it ’cause who wants to throw grampa to the wolves, he’s such a sweet old idiot.
I still think the long run for Christie is, no indictment, no problem. The GOP loves them some back biting sh*t kickers. Shiv some librul do-gooder and you get the Tough on Our Enemies Gold Star. And collateral damage? Hey those slobs shouldn’t of voted for the wrong party, they got what they had commin’ .
Then again there comes a point where enough crap piled up can stink up the place pretty much. And if the feds make it into a federal case all bets are off. Once again, INDICTMENT?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@John M. Burt: You need to fix your URI in your username if you want to be a true mercenary for your blog. ;-)
Should be – http://john_m_burt.blogspot.com/ (missing a period)
Cheers,
Scott.
Gindy51
Kristol is humping Huckabee this time around. Says the old preacher can beat Christie in the primaries.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/20/bill-kristol-mike-huckabee-would-beat-chris-christie-in-a-republican-primary/
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Christie’s a bully and hired bullies. Bullies eventually go too far.
“Leroy Brown he learned a lesson ’bout messin’ with the wife of a jealous man…”
The GWB stuff, the proposed Hudson River tunnel stuff, the screaming at teachers, the NJSC stuff, the Hoboken stuff, his speech at the Republican Convention – it’s all pieces of the whole that is Christie. It’s all about him. He’s a bully who thinks rules and social conventions of civility don’t apply to him. He thinks he’s entitled to impose his will on anyone else.
I have no idea what is going to bring him down, but something will. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he is impeached. I will be slightly surprised if he resigns before he were indicted.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Gindy51:
If Kristol wants to live in a country lead by a radical cleric, he should move to Iran.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Gindy51:
If Kristol wants to live in a country lead by a radical cleric, he should move to Iran.
Cervantes
How does Rubin reconcile herself to Christie’s occasional unwillingness to scape-goat Muslims?
gene108
@Gindy51:
What’s interesting about Huckabee’s 2008 run for the Presidency is how completely the anti-tax nuts savaged the hell out of him for raising taxes, because he had to comply with an Arkansas Supreme Court order requiring equal / better funding for schools in his state.
Huckabee wanted to run on a platform of how his state’s education rankings improved, but the whole raising taxes thingy to do it pretty much killed his campaign.
He could’ve been an interesting candidate, because he was the only person in the Republican primary field talking about how to help the middle-class.
As much as social conservatives want to control the “purity test’ GOP candidates must adhere to, I think the anti-tax nuts have more actual power in keeping candidates in line.
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
Any one in the tristate area has known that Christie is nothing but a bullying prick for, oh, forever now. I don’t expect his prior track record will draw much attention from the media elites, although ideally this little escapade will reframe everything that happens from now on–i.e., he’s not a take-no-prisoners get-er-done guy, he’s just an asshole.
And he will fuck up again. It’s just wired into his DNA.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fred:
Christie is between a rock and a hard place. The GOP may like a bully, but the resto f the country generally doesn’t. To be a viable national candidate, Christie has tone down the asshole and play up the work across aisle and get things done aspect of his image; this hurts his primary chances and is going to be much harder since this scandal. OTOH, to win the primary, Christie has to be an asshole as much of the time as possible. That is, every minute he is fighting for the nomination, he is likely to be damaging is prospects for the general. For Christie to be a viable presidential winner, he needs to flip some states that Obama won in 2012. What states can he put into play?
El Caganer
@Gindy51: There’s another potential candidate we can now write off.
MattF
@Gindy51: There’s only one reason why Kristol would back anybody– if and only if they want to invade places. I hadn’t known that about Huckabee.
karen
Didn’t Huckabee want to force conversions to Christianity? I’m not sure if Kristol is Jewish but if he is, I don’t understand how he can support someone who wants that.
I think that since Christie has angered Teapublicans, he might fall faster. They’ve been reacting with schadenfreude and saying things like “See what happens when you hang out with liberals. And now they’re turning on you.” Or that because he embraced Obama he’s learned that “Chicago” thuggery. As if Christie was a saint up until he met Obama.
The Teapublicans are just grabbing the popcorn and watching.
ThresherK
Is “Holocene Human” around? Cos they wanted to know something about laptop keyboards, and I’m here to report my findings.
C.V. Danes
If this was an isolated case, then Christie might be able to recover. But is not an isolated case. It is indicative of a pattern of abuse that has been going on for years. Now that the whole thing is coming unraveled, it is only going to get worse for Christie.
Villago Delenda Est
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Or he can go to Saudi Arabia to experience a bunch of reactionary clerics who have a partnership with an absolute monarchy, which is pretty much the same thing.
slippytoad
@Omnes Omnibus:
This pretty much sums up why I think the GOP is doomed in the near term. Too much of their self-identity comes from gleefully skull-fucking ‘liberals’ and generally being in your face with an unapologetic elitistm. The more they do it the more it becomes a requirement to even be accepted as a wingnut.
Another way to look at it is GOPers used to have all these issues that they ran on, which they also added +asshole to and the mix was OK. Now that most of those bogeymen have evaporated, all that’s left are the +asshole elements of the GOP. And, really, who needs assholes around, ever?
Faux News
@Gindy51:Huckabee? ROFLOL. I guess since Sarah Grifter Palin is no longer available to be the POTUS then Kristol must be seeing stars with. Any endorsement by Kristol is an automatic Kiss of Death.