Stile: GWB controversy deals a big hit to Christie's reputation as truth-teller

[DonViejo]

THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2014 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY JANUARY 9, 2014, 8:07 AM

By CHARLES STILE
COLUMNIST

Governor Christie often preaches a simple, homespun credo that could have easily been lifted out of an old Frank Capra movie: Tell people the truth, and they’ll stick by you through the missteps and the outbursts.

“What the people of New Jersey want is someone who’s real, and will tell them the truth as he sees it, and that’s what I’ve done for four years,” Christie said in a debate in October. “And that’s what I’ve done — told them the truth.”

But Christie, who markets himself as an unconventional politician brazenly championing the truth, is reeling in a crisis that threatens to define him as a conventional Jersey politician. The George Washington Bridge furor threatens to rob Christie of his truth-telling franchise, the very quality that distinguished him from every other air-brushed or transparently cautious politician in the country.

The once-local bridge incident and its traffic nightmares were portrayed by Christie and others as insignificant, much as Watergate was called a “two-bit break-in.”

- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/political_stile/Stile_Christies_reputation_as_truth-teller_takes_a_big_hit.html?page=all#sthash.vNXSc7fb.dpuf

[truebluegreen]

1. Not only a conventional politician,

but a conventional New Jersey politician. Ouch. Can't wait for conservatives to trumpet that the way they do "Chicago-style."

[DonViejo]

2. The Governor now has a hyphenated last name...

Chris Christie-Soprano

[truebluegreen]

3. Exactly!

I was pretty disgusted with the national party not taking him on in the election, but maybe this is better anyway. He is more visible nationally and had farther to fall.

[djean111]

4. I believe if he were to tell the truth as he sees it, the closures were no big deal,

and the closures were politically expedient and useful as a warning. To him, no real harm done, and if people had not kept inconveniently digging, the closures would have been a fantastic object lesson to cowering Democrats.
The only thing that pisses him off is that he will have to perhaps wait a bit before retaliating against the people who uncovered the emails. IMO.