The Christie Disaster

Trenton, New Jersey. With new revelations, accusations and questions coming almost hourly, and more of his inner circle resigning and citing their 5th Amendment rights each day, the outlook for Governor Chris Christies's political future grows exceedingly grim. The normally well-received governor was even loudly booed at a Superbowl event this past weekend while Republican politicians who once stood behind him are now quietly tiptoeing away from the cameras. The sinking ship is nearly ratless.

The polls are not favoring the embattled governor either. The uncanny approval ratings he only recently basked in are now turning upside down and his frontrunner status for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 has dwindled to a bad fourth. While the Democrats, and Hillary Clinton in particular, might be savoring a moment of political schadenfreude, the Republicans are not thrilled. With Jeb Bush now leading the pack for the 2016 nomination, and losing handily by double digits to Clinton in a theoretical match-up, their hopes for taking back the White House are about as realistic as the Bronco's fourth quarter odds against the Seahawks were. Of course there's always Mike Huckabee.

And what makes matters worse is that Bridgegate is dominating the news at a time when the Republicans desperately want to focus on Benghazi, and the media, with the notable exception of Fox News, is just not cooperating. There is a reason: one is an actual scandal, one is not. And the media loves a real scandal and can sometimes tell the difference. And although Republicans fervently want Americans to believe that besieged embassy personnel dying tragically in a faraway and chaotic war zone is exactly identical to a governor's administration using its high offices to punish political opponents in a petulant and bullying manner, the parallel seems to be escaping most reasonable people.

But now my staff is telling me we have breaking news. We go to Herbert Morrison in Lakehurst, New Jersey for the latest.

It's practically standing still now. They've dropped ropes out of the nose of the ship, and they've been taken a hold of down on the field by a number of men. It's starting to rain again; it's—the rain has slacked up a little bit. The back motors of the ship are just holding it just, just enough to keep it from — It burst into flames! Get this, Charlie! Get this, Charlie! It's fire—and it's crashing! It's crashing terrible! Oh, my, get out of the way, please! It's burning and bursting into flames, and the—and it's falling on the mooring-mast and all the folks agree that this is terrible, this is one of the worst catastrophes in the world. It's–it's–it's the flames,  oh, four- or five-hundred feet into the sky and it ... it's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It's smoke, and it's flames now ... and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring-mast. Oh, the humanity and all the passengers screaming around here. I told you, I can't even talk to people whose friends are on there. Ah! It's–it's–it's–it's ... o–ohhh! I–I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest, it's just laying there, a mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk, and the screaming. Lady, I–I'm sorry. Honest: I–I can hardly breathe. I–I'm going to step inside where I cannot see it. Charlie, that's terrible. Ah, ah—I can't. I, listen, folks, I–I'm gonna have to stop for a minute because I've lost my voice. This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed.

Okay. I really must apologize. I trusted my staff to get me the right clip. I'm really angry. I did not know they were going use that. Someone's going to get fired. That was about another big gasbag that went down in flames in New Jersey.

©2014 Kona Lowell