"A Christie Life Primer" by Gail Collins at the New York Times

[applegrove]

A Christie Life Primer

by Gail Collins at the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/opinion/collins-a-christie-life-primer.html?action=click&contentCollection=Dance&region=Footer&module=Recommendation&src=recg&pgtype=article

"SNIP.....................


The governor was, indeed, portrayed in a light of near-beatific proportions. He had absolutely no role in the most infamous traffic jam since Woodstock. He was too good, and too busy doing other things, like comforting the victims of a fire — an act of mercy he felt driven to perform even though he had to cancel “a planned trip to Florida with his wife for her birthday.”

The investigators acknowledged that one of the evil-doers, David
Wildstein, might have informed Christie about the lane-closing plan. This was apparently at a 9/11 memorial ceremony, and the report calls it “a reference that the Governor does not recall and, even if actually made, would not have registered with the Governor in any event because he knew nothing about this decision in advance and would not have considered another traffic issue at one of the bridges or tunnels to be memorable.”

People, try reading that last quote out loud. Doesn’t it sound a tad over-defensive? In a breathless kind of way? Also, if you were the governor and some official came up to you at a 9/11 ceremony and started talking about access lanes on the George Washington Bridge, wouldn’t you at
least say to yourself: “Hmm, that’s a strange topic of conversation.” I mean, it would stick in the mind.

The investigators said they could find no real evidence of why the lane closings were organized. But they fingered Wildstein as planner-in-chief. He was an official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge. Aficionados of this story will remember the governor’s announcement that while he and Wildstein were high school classmates, they didn’t travel in the same circles. (“You know, I was the class president and athlete. I don’t know what David was doing during that period of time.”) The guy appears to be a real jerk, but you still have to have a little sympathy there.




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[UTUSN]

1. r#2 & k nt