Paul Begala: Christie's choice: Be seen as a crook or a schnook?

[babylonsister]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/opinion/begala-christie-scandal-stick/index.html

Christie's choice: Be seen as a crook or a schnook?
By Paul Begala, CNN Political Commentator
updated 11:16 AM EST, Fri January 10, 2014



(CNN) -- Somewhere, Dick Nixon wants a royalty check.

When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie channeled his inner Tricky Dick and declared, "I am not a bully," he did himself no favors.

To be fair, Christie faced a dilemma: Either admit to creating a climate of bullying, intimidation and political payback that led to the George Washington Bridge scandal, or claim that his staff and appointees disrupted traffic on the world's busiest bridge as political punishment without his knowledge. In the business we call it a choice between being a crook or a schnook.

A schnook, for those who don't speak Yiddish, is a dupe. A fool. A patsy. A schnook is a victim, and Chris Christie is not convincing playing the victim. He wants us to believe that Gov. Straight-Talk, Mister No-B.S., credulously believed a pack of lies from his close aides.

He wants us to believe that, as a former federal prosecutor, he thought his one-hour "investigation" of this operation, which yielded no confessions, was all that he could have done to unearth the truth. The governor clearly hopes that his press conference, his apology and his firing of one whole person will put this issue to rest.

It won't.

There's a great old saying that battle-scarred scandal managers love: "The dogs bark but the carnival moves on." It's the crisis manager's equivalent of "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning," meant to reassure the scandal-plagued public figure that the media and the public have short attention spans, and that the next twerking episode will distract folks.

But not with the Chris Christie bridge-closing scandal: This one's gonna stick.

How do I know? Three reasons:

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http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/opinion/begala-christie-scandal-stick/index.html

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[hobbit709]

2. He's both.

[monmouth3]

3. Christie "knows nothing" will work when he's indicted. They'll have to prove it...n/t