One of the many great characters in Catch-22 is Major Major Major Major, an unfortunate soul whose father's sadistic naming of him was matched by the army's unexplained promotion of him to the rank of "Major," giving him the quadruple repeated name.
But Major Major is also known for his unwillingness ever to talk with anyone: He orders his assistant only to admit people to his office when he is not in; if he is in, no one may visit.
Well, Chris Christie or Big Chicken, as perfectly named by Charlie Pierce, pulled a Major Major last week. Parents of Newtown victims came to see Christie about his veto of a bill that would have limited the size of firearm magazines to 10 rounds. Steve Benen reports: "It’s tempting to think basic human decency, if nothing else, would lead a politician to at least hear these parents out, but Christie’s office said he was out – even though the parents said they saw the governor when they arrived at his office."
No doubt, Christie didn't want to meet the parents face-to-face and make the ludicrous argument he made to the press:
I’ve heard the argument, and so, are we saying, then, that the 10 children on the clip that they advocate for, that their lives are less valuable? If you take the logical conclusion of their argument, you go to zero, because every life is valuable.
In other words, if you can't save all of the children, why bother saving any? This, in the face of evidence that the limits on magazine size actually did save lives in Aurora, Tucson and even Newtown. (Christie previously vetoed a bans the .50-caliber rifle — the most powerful weapon widely available to civilians.)
Of course, Christie vetoed the bill because of he delusionally still thinks he has a chance at the Republican nomination, and that chance motivates everything he does, beginning with killing the ARC Tunnel -- the original sin of all of Christie's many crimes against his state (and mine, New York).
Based on his exquisitely illogical, pandering and amoral rationale for vetoing the magazine limit, I would advise Christie to give up his Presidential aspirations and aim for a Supreme Court nomination from a Republican President. Surely his logical, partisan and rational abilities are on a par with those of the Supreme Court majority in Hobby Lobby and Citizen's United.