Now why do you think that was? Mere happenstance, apparently. Nothing to do with any lanes being closed, for no immediately apparent reason.
You *know *this was no ordinary traffic jam. Please.
Not in the court of public opinion, it isn’t.
Everything? Nobody said that.
To repeat: Please.
The story is Christie, his conduct, his judgment in selecting staff members, his response to constituent issues, and what all that reflects on his qualifications for a position of public trust. It isn’t about MSNBC; please note that all political media other than Fox are reporting the same facts in essentially the same way. Is that a conspiracy, or are they merely doing their jobs?
I did answer that, and added that it doesn’t fucking matter, and may well become true at some not-very-distant future. You may not want to accept that, but it’s true. Please note that the Attorney General’s investigations, of this and the Hoboken shakedown incident, are in the early stages, and nothing will be reported until/unless charges are filed. That hardly means there isn’t anything there, right?
… if you believe the Christie aide that the Hoboken mayor was speaking to.
I believe you mean, “if you believe what the Hoboken mayor said about what the Christie “aide” (aka Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno) allegedly said to her?”
I don’t believe the “Christie aide” has made a statement admitting threatening Mayor Hoboken because Christie demanded she do so. I believe Guadagno has denied the allegation (as if that matters at this point. ). Unless new evidence has been discovered, this is a she says/she says situation.
I have no problem with there being an investigation. I have no problem questioning the investigation(s), either. A “fair trial”, even in the court of public opinion, still requires an opposing view point if it’s to be considered fair.
All of that would be moot if the administration could say, “That mayor’s nuts! Look at all the money that was given to Hoboken for disaster relief.” Given that that hasn’t been said, I believe that the money has been withheld from a city that was hit pretty hard. That’s bad no matter why the money was withheld. Like with the bridge closure, it means that Chris Christie is either corrupt or horribly incompetent.
Hindsight is 20/20. What was known on day one? People were struggling to find out what happened and were responding to the situation as best as they could. The Port Authority knew what (they thought) was happening. Baroni, Wildstein, and Bridget Anne Kelly knew what had happened AND why it was happening. Was anyone else involved? That’s unknown at this point in time.
The media outlets are now famous for cut-and-paste reporting. We didn’t get the story wrong - we only copied it from some other outlet. They’re the one who got it wrong. I question MSNBC’s coverage/speculation of the Great Lane Reassignment debacle. That doesn’t mean you have to.
I’ve given up trying to explain why some politicians get reelected. If the voters want Christie back, Christie gets another term. If not, well, maybe they’ll do a “Sopranos” movie with Christie in the lead role?
Christie ordered it directly, certainly not in writing.
Christie made it clear he wanted some payback for those who refused to endorse him, but didn’t specify what. (My guess.)
Christie did neither of these things but ran an environment where top aides felt comfortable screwing the people and were sure they would not be called on the carpet for it (assuming no one found out.)
Christie is just a poor innocent naive soul, hiring aides who did this against his even tacit will.
It’s all a figment of the Democratic imagination and there really was a traffic study which got lost.
Not one of these possibilities looks good for him.
Have any other possibilities?
One thing I don’t understand about this whole question is: What was the point of the thing. If that guy who didn’t vote for him (or whatever) didn’t know that Christie was behind it, then what would you get out of doing this?
giggles
This is nothing new. Christie from day one has shown a pattern of being unnecessarily vindictive against those that slighted him in some way. Just one other story of many. This bully label did not come out of thin air.
I voted for him the first time. I’d vote for Stalin before I ever vote for him again.
Here is a pretty good over view of Christie’s political career. Nothing in it that rings false to me. His whole anti-corruption outside of the system act is a facade.
It’s a good article, albeit a lengthy one. I’d summarize it with this quote: By taking down some of the state’s bosses while leaving others off-limits, Christie had effectively turned the supposedly apolitical role of prosecutor into that of kingmaker. It was a brilliant strategy. New Jersey offered such a target-rich environment that Christie was able to get credit for taking down a slew of crooked officials and build alliances with some of the most powerful bosses in the state at the same time. When Christie was U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a job he secured despite having essentially no experience with criminal law, he racked up over 130 convictions of corrupt pols. More Democrats than Republicans, but still. He studiously avoided the biggest fish though. Arguably it was a net win for NJ, though it certainly advanced Christie’s career.
Ironically, Wildstein was another guy who took on NJ corruption before marinating in it. He used to be the anonymous editor of politickernj. http://www.politickernj.com/
What “bridge closure”? Two of the three tollbooth lanes normally assigned to Ft Lee entrance traffic were reassigned to the main artery which increased from nine lanes to eleven.
Finally something I can agree with. You’re technically correct, but the effect was to resrict traffic coming from Fort Lee by squeezing three lanes of traffic down to one to get to the tollbooths, so the common usage has been to refer to it as lane closures. I see this as a distinction without a difference. I’m personally less offended by this than the use of the term “Bridgegate”. The “gate” suffix has forever burrowed itself into our lexicon, to the point where future generations will think that “Watergate” was a scandal involving water.
FYI - If you have six media outlets reporting the exact same story almost verbatim, you don’t have confirmation from six different sources. You have one story being repeated six times. “Everyone is saying it, so it must be true” doesn’t actually make it true. Cut-and-paste journalism at its finest. The court of public opinion/kangaroo court/lynch mob seems to unduly influenced by the currently popular “cut-and-paste journalism” technique.
Addressing the stories/speculations that MSNBC actually broke - Steve Kornacki broke the Hudson Lights real estate development alleged/possible extortion story. What was missing from the story were interviews/statements from the seller, the buyer, the financier, or the builder of the actual project. Were they threatened or even concerned with the Great Lane Reassignment debacle? I consider information like that to be important or at least interesting. “Yes, we were greatly concerned and considered dropping the project” or "No, we were never approached by any political bagmen or media reporters. If we had experienced any pressure, we would have had our people call their people and remind them who put them in office. 'nuff said."
MSNBC’s Maddow has cast doubt on the “Sokolich endorsement of Christie” speculation with speculation of her own. Maddow has suggested that the lane closures were retribution for NJ democrats blocking Helen Hoens appointment to the NJ Supreme Court.
The claims against Christie keep building. What hasn’t happened is providing proof of any of these speculations.
We probably agree on a lot of subjects, just not politics. That doesn’t make us evil people. It ain’t personal, it’s business. Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
It’s the “common usage” of many of the claims now associated with the Great Lane Reassignment that annoys me. “Something” did happen. The fastest way to get to the bottom of what actually happened is to prove/disprove each accusation.
‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’
-Sherlock Holmes (The Sign of Four)
Ahem… I said that. I provided three equally lame examples similar to the “Christie must be guilty because he isn’t fucking clueless” claim.
You believe that Christie must have known what “they” were doing because he isn’t fucking clueless. That’s pretty slim evidence. I’m not ready to jump that shark yet. 1) Christie is smart, so he must know everything the Port Authority is doing. 2) Christie is a big fat guy, so he must be a sumo wrestler. 3) Christie doesn’t stop talking, so he must not delegate authority.
The main problem with the clueless doofus theory is that it would be easy to falsify and nearly impossible to prove. Just one errant e-mail and pop goes the weasel-think. And even if no actual proof exists, we are left with a roaming cloud of suspicion with no resolution. After all, it was somebody’s idea, wasn’t it? We may reasonably expect it was somebody who either had or thought she had the authority to make it happen.
We may reasonably surmise that she expected he would approve. But could anyone be so certain that they would borrow the Governor’s authority without advising him? And three days, nobody tells him, he floats about in an innocent cloud of ignorance?
Hell, sounds fine to me, no smoking gun, Christie goes forward neither exonerated nor convicted, ready to perform a high dive face plant, hopefully with the Republican nomination in his hand. And shit, there’s always Mitt, tan, rested and ready!
). Unless new evidence has been discovered, this is a she says/she says situation.