Bridgegate: The Fall of Chris Christie

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

This is Christie's Benghazi. He'll get slammed over this, mostly from the left, but in the end it'll hardly matter.

[Person Man]

This is Christie's Benghazi. He'll get slammed over this, mostly from the left, but in the end it'll hardly matter.

There's no there there when you use taxpayer $ and end up killing a bystander to take revenge on a rival. If Christie still gets the nod after this, he probably also has the political skills to win it all but will probably get impeached. Can he be impeached as Governor?

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

This is Christie's Benghazi. He'll get slammed over this, mostly from the left, but in the end it'll hardly matter.

There's no there there when you use taxpayer $ and end up killing a bystander to take revenge on a rival. If Christie still gets the nod after this, he probably also has the political skills to win it all but will probably get impeached. Can he be impeached as Governor?

Yes, he can. I think all governors can be.

I don't think this will be much of an issue for him politically but if he really did this out of revenge, he could create massive problems for himself down the road. Hopefully he is smart enough to not let himself become Nixon 2.0 if he is elected.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Christie can be impeached and he can be recalled, tho a recall can't take effect until he's been in office a year and it would require a impossibly large 25% of the voters to sign a recall petition to trigger a recall election, so the recall provision in New Jersey is essentially worthless.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

This will blow over.

[Person Man]

This is Christie's Benghazi. He'll get slammed over this, mostly from the left, but in the end it'll hardly matter.

There's no there there when you use taxpayer $ and end up killing a bystander to take revenge on a rival. If Christie still gets the nod after this, he probably also has the political skills to win it all but will probably get impeached. Can he be impeached as Governor?

Yes, he can. I think all governors can be.

I don't think this will be much of an issue for him politically but if he really did this out of revenge, he could create massive problems for himself down the road. Hopefully he is smart enough to not let himself become Nixon 2.0 if he is elected.

This entire thing is a red flag that if he wins, this is inevitable.

[homelycooking]

If I lived in New Jersey, I think that I would probably view the decision to spend $25 million on a special *Wednesday* election for Cory Booker as the more underhanded, conniving and politically expedient abuse of power on Christie's behalf.

...Although if he really wanted to be nasty about it, he would have had the special election held on a Monday.

[Cory]

This will blow over.

Keep telling yourself that.

[Person Man]

This will blow over.

I give it a 60% chance of doing so...in fact, it could so infuriate Democrats that this could be the only thing they talk about and as a result Independents and the few Blue Dogs left will think they are ignorant (2004, 2012). Christie could in fact be Bush 3.0 because Obama, in a way, was Bush 2.0 but something this black and white could make things different.

[publicunofficial]

This will blow over.

Nothing blows over when you run for President.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

This will blow over.

Nothing blows over when you run for President.

Which is why Hillary is still in  a heap of trouble also.

[ElectionsGuy]

This is Christie's Benghazi. He'll get slammed over this, mostly from the left, but in the end it'll hardly matter.

[Zioneer]

This will blow over.

Nothing blows over when you run for President.

Which is why Hillary is still in  a heap of trouble also.

Over what, Benghazi?

[RogueBeaver]

This will blow over.

Nothing blows over when you run for President.

Which is why Hillary is still in  a heap of trouble also.

Over what, Benghazi?

There are few richer target environments than Clintonworld.

[Tender Branson]

This will probably lower his approval ratings from 65-30 to about 45-45 in the next weeks ...

In the long term, he has no chance whatsoever anymore to win the 2016 nomination, because Democrats and Indies will abandon him and the Republicans will not support him significantly.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

This is Christie's Benghazi. He'll get slammed over this, mostly from the left, but in the end it'll hardly matter.

I can see his primary opponents using it against him too - they'd frame it as a bunch of overpaid state employees with fat pensions arbitrarily wreaking havoc on commuting, working Americans for political gain.

[HAnnA MArin County]

Does anyone think he would use this to his advantage in the primaries to appeal to the crazies/Tea Party base that loves these kinds of things: punishing Democrats for voting for Democratic candidates. It seems to me that this could earn him points with the base of the party that already perceives him as a moderate/liberal/establishment/RINO. Just a thought.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

This will blow over.

To be clear, the scandal is this: A Christie appointee and personal friend of the governor spent $60,000 of taxpayer money in order to -- and the emails are damn clear about this -- cause political retribution. Never mind the fact this all happened when these guys were on the clock.

This is a really easy scandal to understand, which is what makes it so damn devastating. The fact that actual New Jerseyans were the ones negatively impacted -- not the mayor, but the people who live in and around Fort Lee -- puts this on a whole other level of bad.

People are going to jail over this. This is a really big deal.

[RogueBeaver]

Christie will hold a press conference at 11.

[ag]

It is, precisely, this: this scandal is easy to understand.

It is, for instance, not easy to explain, what is it that any politician has done wrong in Benghazi: in fact, I still have not seen an explanation I myself would understand. On the other hand, murder accusations against the Clintons, though easy enough to understand, were never more than that: unsubstantiated accusations. But this is both clear and transparent. This is exactly what everybody wants people in position of authority to burn in hell (or, at least, spend time in, jail) for, if they do it: and they not only did it, the boasted about it in writing.  This is the archetypal abuse of authority: whether it was done on the command from above, or was an underling's initiative, it is too beautiful to simply go away. Before it does, somebody will have to go to prison, at the very least.

Add to this, that so many people potentially charged with figuring this out are interested in this being exploited to the max - and so few would have any interest in letting it die down. NJ State Legislature is already on it. It seems, NYState authorities are very much interested. The Feds could be accused of negligence if they ignored it. Democratic state and municipal officials now have every reason to dig up stuff: both those who never endorsed Christie (they, if nothing else, would like to take revenge - and every canceled appointment now becomes something they want to revenge for), and those who did endorse him (they need to account for treason, and "I was forced to do it by blackmail, because I did not dare endangering grandmas and toddlers" might cut it). Conservative Republicans are quite happy for their own reasons: and some of these may have their own scores to settle.

And once this starts, everybody who turns on Christie will have a vested interest in making sure he is defanged for good. And that means, at the very least, making sure he is a weak governor, not surrounded by any aides he can properly rely on.

I am not saying Christie cannot weather it. But this is a serious storm, and a lot of political talent, sacrifice and luck would be required for it to go away. It is very interesting to see how this develops.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think Scott called it right.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

I found a live blog on his press conference.
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolreport/2014/01/09/live-blog-of-chris-christie-press-conference-on-bridge-scandal/

[Tender Branson]

Live stream:

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/gov-christie-holds-news-conference

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Starting off well.

[t_host1]

 This is an easy sentencing exercise; Christie and family lose all driving privileges for 5 years, and all principles involved from the order to the executer’s lose driving privileges for life. This in no-way denies civil liabilities’ by all, of the principles, that incurred deliberate denial of passage.  Like Obama, Christie is the yeast in the brew of his governance.