And Chris Christie is Sgt Schultz:
“The memo from Gov. Chris Christie’s office attacking former appointee David Wildstein’s credibility landed with a thud. It was a striking and deeply personal broadside coming from a chief executive of a state, and even his allies called it a mistake,” Politico reports.
“But one important person hadn’t seen the missive ahead of time: the governor himself.”
“Christie’s aides did not run the document – which took the extraordinary step of highlighting incidents from Wildstein’s high school days – by the governor before they sent it out, according to two people familiar with the matter. Instead, someone tucked the high school lines into a daily briefing email to the governor’s supporters, and blasted it out earlier than planned. Another round of unflattering news coverage ensued.”
This little piece of spin is so stupid that the one thing we can be sure of is that it was leaked to Politico without Christie’s knowledge.
Jerzy Russian
I like the Hogan’s Heros reference. Who would be Col. Klink in this mess?
rumpole
“The intern responsible has been dismissed from the governor’s staff.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Jerzy Russian: Christie of course, because apparently he isn’t running anything,
Samuel Lockhart
Vote For Christie! He Hires Idiots and Doesn’t Know What’s Going On!
dmsilev
So, um, who else in the Governor’s office was sufficiently knowledgeable about the Governor and Wildstein’s high-school days that they could write this memo?
Obvious question, and hence one that Politico didn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
c u n d gulag
Gov. Christie, “Ask not for whom the bridge tolls. It tolls for thee.”
beltane
I could see a BBC comedy called “Drumthwacket” being spun off of all this, with Rowan Atkinson playing the part of Christie’s closest advisor.
Schlemizel
I feel so bad for Krust Krusty! Here is is, a kind gentle soul struggling to improve the lives of Americans everywhere while maintaining his yoga and mediation cycle, praying for world peace and planning a group hug/tea and crumpets bash for all of NJ. SOmehow this kind, warm, wonderful human being has been surrounded with the scum of humanity, petty evil people who enjoy doing bad things and saying mean things about people who are not 100% on board with this simple, lovely mans goals.
OH CRUEL FATE! WHY DO YOU MISTREAT THIS GREAT MAN SO?
dmsilev
So I took a look through the Politco comments (I know, I know), and it’s all Benghazi! and IRS! and Obamacare!. They really are caught in a pseduo-reality of their very own.
cathyx
Christie had to approve the leak about Wildstein in high school, no one could just know about that in the first place without Christie mentioning it.
Fuzzy
Christie should be appointed ambassador to Benghazi with his own security and press team.
OzarkHillbilly
@beltane: OUCH OUCHOUCHOUCHOUCH……
SiubhanDuinne
@cathyx:
Many of the things about Wildstein were previously in his Wikipedia profile, citing a 2012 newspaper article. (I do think Christie knew about the memo, for the record.)
PurpleGirl
Advice to Christie and his advisors: Climb out of the hole, put the shovel down and step away from the hole. All you are doing is digging the hole deeper and it ain’t working.
ETA: Remember the cover-up is worse than the original sin.
muricafukyea
Why hasn’t wr0ng way Cole been blowing any wet kisses to fat bastard KhristieKreme lately? We all know he still has a raging man crush for the fat fuk.
barry
@Jerzy Russian:
The guy on MSNBC in whose office they found an dead intern
pgb
on the contrary…… keep digging. when your enemy is hurting themselves get out of the way.
Amir Khalid
@beltane:
And Terry Jones’ Mr Creosote fat suit as the Guv’nor.
Fred
@Schlemizel: So true and poignant. I catch myself weeping in the bathroom at the thought of the injustice. Cruel world.
I still say, if the fat man doesn’t get indicted he’s gonna walk on past this mess like it never happened. There’s nothing GOPers love more than a bad boy who gets away with it.
piratedan
does that mean Reince Preibus is Col. Hockstedder?
beltane
@Amir Khalid: YESS!
(no fat joke intended)
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: I think Christie is the kind of boss who demands to know everything. NOBODY does stuff behind this guy’s back.
Alex S.
Not only doesn’t Christie know what his immediate subordinates are doing, he also doesn’t know how his office defends himself from a career-threatening scandal.
Amir Khalid
@Fred:
Then again, Christie still has to govern New Jersey through 2017. And he’s been defending himself in this scandal, so far, by repudiating his own gubernatorial authority. “Oh, my people went behind my back to do all these terrible things.” You have to wonder if he’ll have enough of it left to function in office.
GregB
It’s just so terrible that all of the people that Christie hired have failed him so terribly.
Thank God Politico is there to get the truth out as Christ Christie sees it.
dp
Those Responsible for Sacking the People Who Have Just Been Sacked, Have Been Sacked.
Dominic P. Lucarelli
I’m sure Reince Priebus of the RNC will order MSNBC to issue an apology. After all, it’s all their fault anyone is paying attention to this. If we left it up to the Beltway media, they’d be egging Christie on to stage a coup against Obama because, after all, Christie is SUCH a nice guy, and he’s BI-PARTISAN! Peggy Nooners says so!
Schlemizel
@Fred:
PRO TIP: splash cold water on your face, it tightens around your eyes & reduces the red caused by crying or poor Krusty
@dp:
Need a ‘like’ button for “Grail” ref!
p.a.
Christie was never popular with the whackaloon right, now he’s losing the ‘Centrist’ media. Means it’s time to “make the hard decisions” (cut welfare benefits) in NJ.
RSA
I hope that the next time Christie touts his accomplishments as governor (e.g., from his state of the state speech), a political reporter will ask, “But did you know about any of that while it was going on?”
Citizen_X
@dp: I would expect better crisis management from Pepe the Wonder Llama or whatever his name was.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane:
OK, Atkinson would have to play this in the mode of Blackadder I. The one where he’s closest to the throne, and yet the most obviously incompetent. So much so that Baldrick comes across as the smart one.
Mr. Prosser
Isn’t there anyone out there who would be kind enough to photoshop Christie’s face into a Sgt. Schultz portrait?
Villago Delenda Est
@PurpleGirl:
They really have a problem with doing that, because the hole they’ve dug so far is pretty deep, and Christie keeps tossing people out of the hole and into the dirt, people he needed to give him a boost out himself.
It’s going to be pretty lonely in the hole towards the end, when the NJ legislature decides to refill it.
Roger Moore
@Samuel Lockhart:
This has stopped being about Christie’s political future and started being about keeping him out of prison. That much should be obvious.
aangus
@Mr. Prosser:
This has been out there for several days already.
http://community.ebay.com/t5/The-Soapbox/quot-HOGAN-S-HEROES-quot-with-Chris-Christie-as-quot-Sgt-Schultz/td-p/19079999
jharp
I figured this was coming. It is ridiculous and won’t do a thing to limit damage.
Christie is still fucked.
calling all toasters
This just proves that Christie is a Democrat– all the other Republican Governors have to live in Auschwitz.
Bill E Pilgrim
My take last night.
AxelFoley
@muricafukyea:
I lol’d.
LosGatosCA
Liar, incompetent, or both?
The Republicans just seem to punch out these morons like goldfish crackers.
The Reagan defense: Of course I have no recollection of committing treason, I have Alzheimer’s for f**k’s sake. Also, too, see W.
It works a lot, but not every time.
Ruckus
@Bill E Pilgrim:
That’s the next level. He’s not quite there yet. Close, maybe a shovel full or two but not quite yet.
Though it is the next logical step in the self destruction that is CC. By they Bye don’t you just know that he wants that to be CiC some day?
mai naem
There’s got to be so much schadenfreude aimed at Christie. The Keans, Menendez, the guys he screwed in his college political career, Frank Lautenberg wherever he’s watching this show from, the Kushners, the old Hoboken mayor, whoever he else he prosecuted during his USAG term, Mittens, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan,Boehner, Cantor …the list goes on and on.
I think somebody here made a comment about how he stepped over all these people getting up the ladder and now on his way down they’re all getting their knife in him. He’s going to need a very talented trauma surgeon when he makes it all the way down.
Ed in NJ
@Fred: You are probably right about Christie skating on any serious charges but his presidential aspirations, always predicated on his bipartisan appeal, are finished. His drop in approval is almost entirely due to Dems abandoning him. The biggest takeaway from this is he is just another asshole Republican, as opposed to his former tough-guy-who-gets-things-done persona. I don’t see him getting that back.
Elizabeth
Just want to thank everyone above for what I have found to be the most incisive and at the same time hilarious comment thread in my time here. You guys are smart and a scream!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@aangus: Driftglass’s is better, I think.
Cheers,
Scott.
HgMn
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s Sir Baldrick to you !
Tony Robinson got knighted recently
Irishguy
Couple of things.
First, the “cover-up is worse than the original sin” was wrong when it was coined about Watergate and it is still wrong. In Watergate, the original sin was Nixon operatives breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Party to replace broken bugs that they had already put there. That is banana republic dictator crap. And on top of that, we got Nixon himself ordering that the CIA tell the FBI to back off for “national security” reasons, then a few years later, telling David Frost, “If the president does it, it’s not illegal.”
Good God! I don’t want to place any value judgment about which was worse.
Second, if I read the word “schadenfreude” one more time, I’m gonna puke.
Irishguy
@Ed in NJ: Christie had to tack far right a la Mitt Romney to have any chance at winning over the crazies and getting the nomination. But he had plenty of time to do that.
And the crazies would absolutely love tough-guy-who-gets-things-done. Unfortunately for Christie, you are correct. Christie is looking more and more like a wimp who can’t control even his own people.
Or more appropriately, like the bully left crying in the snow after Ralphie beat him up in Christmas Story.
That won’t play very well in Wingnutlandia.
Mumpy Burrows
@rumpole: I have little doubt that’d be the unpaid intern responsible for saying “Harrumph”.
Ed in NJ
@Irishguy:
Well, shitting on Dems is the fast track to teabillie credibility, so his hijinks could have actually helped him in the primaries, while allowing to continue his moderate facade. But the incompetence in the aftermath have made him toxic. When Rick Perry doesn’t want to be in the same room as you, you are toast.
Irishguy
@Ed in NJ: Exactly. And the question is when, not if, he will be asked to resign as big boy of the Republican Governors Association. That’s just the first step.
Of course, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s dream is to have Christie continue to be the national face of the Republican Party for as long as possible.
JaneE
The only way I see Christie getting out of this OK is to strongly take charge of his administration and make darn sure that all public activities are conducted with scrupulous fairness, out in the open with complete transparency. I just don’t think that that will happen.
Cervantes
Historical note: There was a real Stalag 13. It was a post-war camp in Nuremberg that held German prisoners — SS officers and the like.
feebog
@JaneE:
Say, you’re new around these parts ain’t ya?
Cervantes
@JaneE: What do you think will happen?
Irishguy
@JaneE: Jane, that is like saying that Alex Rodriguez can save his reputation and attain the Hall of Fame by staying off the juice and playing the game from now on with scrupulous fairness.
The die is cast. The real Christie has stood up.
Baldand60
@pgb: Please proceed, governor.