For decades, the New Hampshire Union Leader has been a bastion of unyielding conservatism. But apparently the paper has some standards, as evidenced by a blistering editorial about the Bridgegate scandal that appeared in Friday's paper. Chris Matthews mentioned it on Friday night's edition of Hardball.
The opening paragraph is an apparent notice to conservatives who are pooh-poohing this affair--this is a BFD that has to be taken seriously.
The George Washington Bridge traffic jam scheme apparently hatched in New Jesey Gov. Chris Christie's executive offices is a legitimate political scandal of undetermined magnitude. Pundits who dismiss it as a non-issue seem to a) assume that nothing more will be discovered, b) discount how serious a violation of public trust the lane closures were, and c) not know how passionate New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary voters are about the misuse of state power.
That seems to be written specifically for wingers who object to the wall-to-wall coverage of this mess on MSNBC and, to a lesser extent, CNN. Unlike Benghazi, there actually is something to it.
The final paragraph reads almost like a post here--if Christie was in any way involved in either this scheme or the coverup, he's cooked.
If Christie was telling the truth when he spent two hours last Thursday denying any involvement in or knowledge of the scheme to close those lanes, he can weather this storm, though trusting staffers capable of such vindictiveness will be considered a mark against him. If he was not telling the truth, his political career should be finished. The American public must not tolerate any politician of any party who would callously turn the machinery of the state against the people for his own personal gain.
The
Union Leader gets it half right. If Christie's narrative of this is true and he didn't know that his staffers were involved, it's a tacit admission that he has a rogue staff. Just as the American people cannot tolerate a politician who willfully puts his own constituents in harm's way, they cannot tolerate a politician who fosters an environment in which his staffers find pulling such a stunt even remotely acceptable. As I've said several times, this, to my mind, is why Christie must resign and resign now.
I have to wonder--is this editorial an attempt to atone for the Canuck letter? After all, the Union Leader is so right wing that I didn't expect it to issue such a strong condemnation of Christie.