Governor Christie,
I was one of the people listening to the live-stream of your press conference yesterday, and the explanation you gave for this debacle and your role in it left me with one word reverberating in my mind:
Bullshit.
You're lying. There are holes in your story, Governor. Let's talk about a few of them.
Read on . . .
As I (and a lot of others already asked) why did it take you 24 hours to fire your deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly after it became blatantly obvious she had abused her position, engaged in petty vendetta politics, inconvenienced and endangered your constituents, embarrassed your office and (according to you) lied to your face, on multiple occasions? It took you a full day to get mad about that? Sorry, but slow-cooker rage doesn’t seem your style. It seems much more like you needed a window for ass-covering. How’s Kelly’s laptop these days? No bad accidents in the last, oh, day or so?
I’m also interested in see how she lands on her feet – ‘cause I just know she will. I should probably start a betting pool on what her salary will be.
And, by your own account, you’ve been awfully uncurious about this whole thing up til now.
When the Port Authority launched its internal review in October – or at any freakin’ point when it became apparent that lane closures were causing problems in Fort Lee – did no one in your government ask Wildstein where his orders came from? Seriously, he resigns over a month ago and still there was no question about where he got his “traffic study” idea? What do you hire at the Port Authority, werewolves (“oh, sometimes they just go feral and do crazy shit, no point asking why”)?
Weren’t you curious at all? Months of traffic closures, an interval review, Assembly hearings announced (with Patrick Foye – executive director of the Port Authority – saying there was no traffic study) and it didn’t cross your mind to find out why two of your appointees were tying up the GWB for months on end? Mayor Sokolich was sure curious about it – he made dozens of calls to the Port Authority. You couldn’t make one? It was kind of a big deal in the state at the time – maybe not “prepping for my next Morning Joe appearance” important, but still up there. I’d have thought you’d call up the guy you gave a key job to and ask him what gives, even if off the record.
Speaking of where his orders came from, let’s look at that email, shall we?
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
That’s it. No preamble, not even an introduction – just a quick line from her private email to his. How did she have his private email? Were they friends? Did they date? Did they grow up together – wait, no, that doesn’t mean anything. Never mind.
Nothing whatsoever. Just one line, out of the blue, but he picks right up on it.
“Got it.”
No confusion at all. No, “why, is there going to be a parade this weekend?” Hell, not even a “I’m sorry, who is this?” Remember, this came from her private (Yahoo – seriously?
Yahoo?) email.
But he knew who she was, and he knew exactly what she was telling him to do. Either they were bonded psychically, or they’d done this dance before. Except we don’t know about Wildstein closing any other bridges (yet, anyway), so it’s not like these two were just on a spree. It implies, however flimsily, that this was more of a culture – that she could have sent an email like that to a lot of appointees, and gotten the same, easy “Got it” in reply.
And by the way – you said you got your Legal Counsel Charles McKenna involved in this last month – he was one of the two people you had interview your staff to see if they were involved with the bridge closure. Funny thing, though (Thanks here to Park Slope Kid's Sherlockian catch:
[11/25/13 12:06 PM] David Wildstein: Charlie said you did GREAT
That’s a text message from Wildstein to Bill Baroni, one of a series of texts where Wildstein is fluffing Baroni because he’s not feeling like he’s gotten enough credit for
shutting down a freaking bridge. There’s only one Charlie on your staff, Governor - guess who it is. Note how this is from November. So the guy you supposedly brought into this to interview people about bridge closures was congratulating people about bridge closures weeks earlier. Boy, you can’t trust
anybody on your staff, can you?
Of course you can. ‘Cause you’re lying about being the dark on all this. Frankly, Governor, we know you.
When State Senator Sean Kean publicly gave his opinion that you waited too long in declaring an emergency during the 2012 blizzard, you shut him out of the news conference you held in his district. One of your aides quipped to the press that he “got what he deserved”.
When State Senator (and former Governor) Richard Codey publicly disputed your claim that he was blocking your nominees, you yanked his police protection (something every former Governor gets, as a courtesy) – and fired a friend and a cousin of his who were both still working in state government.
After Alan Rosenthal - a political scientist from Rutgers who was sitting on the state’s redistricting commission - defied you by voting against your party’s gerrymandered map, you used your line-item veto to cut almost $170 grand from his institute at the University.
And when Bill Lavin from the state’s firefighters union, said in a radio interview that you and the union needed to talk, he got a call from Bill Baroni – gee, he’s one of the guys that tied up the GW Bridge – delivering what’s described as “an obscene message telling him what you thought he should do”. In other words, you told him to go fuck himself.
So petty vendettas . . . yeah, chief, that’s your style, and we all know it. So this bridge thing may shock some of your fans, but the rest of us, not so much.
Some may take the title and tone of this little epistle to be “uncivil”. Fuck that. First off, civility in modern politics is a sham. It’s what gave us the cult of the Beltway, with hypoxic-from-the-rarified-air pundits assuming that, as long as everyone is still invited to each other’s cocktail parties, all is right with the world – starving children and chronically unemployed be damned.
Secondly, no one should use your name and the world “civil” in the same sentence. You’re one of the least civil people in politics. You’ve freely insulted and shouted down any reporter or citizen that ever asked you a prickly question. You are, in short, a bully. Even if you could take it as well as you dish it out (and you can’t – you’ve proven that time and again), you wouldn’t deserve an ounce of civility, and here’s why.
People were hurt by this. At least one hunt for a missing child was obstructed. Ambulances and fire trucks were delayed dealing with the traffic mess your little flying monkeys inflicted on Fort Lee. Maybe no one died because of the closures – and maybe, just maybe, no one even suffered a worse or lasting injury because of the delays. Sure, when there’s muscle or nerve damage, or when blood flow is restricted, every second counts, but maybe everyone who needed an ambulance around Fort Lee got lucky and the tie-up didn’t cost them, oh, full use of a hand or extra months of rehab. It’s possible.
But anyone over the age of ten should know it isn’t likely.
And for that, sir, I say: fuck you, you lying sack of crap.