Beutler: Christie’s Sopranos-style mess: Why more and more stink will engulf the bridge scandal

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From Brian Beutler at Salon:

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/04/christies_sopranos_style_mess_why_more_and_more_stink_will_engulf_the_bridge_scandal/

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There’s a lot we still don’t know about the bridge scandal — yesterday’s deadline to submit subpoenaed documents to the state Legislature will probably result in leaks that help fill some of the gaps.

But we do know that the best possible outcome for Christie is that he must live with the following absurdity trailing behind him for the rest of his political career. Christie has now twice reflected back to his high school days to waft away Wildstein’s stink. First, to questionably claim he didn’t really know Wildstein (because he ran in a cooler crowd) and then to say that, in fact, Wildstein was a holy terror in high school.

“So that nerd I never knew in high school? I actually did know him. He was a lying son of a bitch — everyone knew that! Which is why I publicly disowned him* (*after making him my eyes and ears inside the Port Authority).”

I find it difficult to believe that anyone explaining away the biggest scandal of his political career with that story could ever survive a presidential nominating process. It’s bad to be identified with a major scandal. It’s worse to clean it up in a way that destroys your reputation for competence. Even the cleanup itself is incompetent! And this is the best Christie can hope for. The alternative is that Wildstein, through his attorney, is telling the truth — that contrary to his many public claims of ignorance, evidence exists (and surfaces) proving that Christie knew about the closures in real time, and suggests knowledge of the true motive as well.

That shoe is still whooshing through midair. If it ever hits ground, Christie might actually have to resign. Even if it never does, though, the slowly effluviating nature of the scandal suggests that more and more stink will accrete around him over the coming weeks in the form of more bad actors for him to alienate. And he’s alienating former allies at such a rapid pace that he could easily end up having several more strange stories to tell about why all the people in his inner circle were obvious liabilities from the start.