On Sat, 1 Feb 2014 19:22:10 -0800 (PST), "Daring Dufas: Hypocrite
TeaBillie on welfare" wrote:



The New York Times reports that David Wildstein, the Port Authority official who oversaw punitive lane closings at the George Washington Bridge, had evidence that Chris Christie knew about it. The Times quickly changed its wording to reflect that fact that Wildstein merely says "evidence exists" that Christie knew.

The "News" was a mess over the weekend.

First was the report, by Wildstein's lawyer, that Christie knew about
the traffic problem while it existed. Followed in the same newscast by
a statement from Christie's office that he always said he knew about
then. Of course knowing there's a traffic jam doesn't prove anything,
no more than that one listens to the news on the radio.

Later some news show, radio or tv, came up with a clip where Christie
says he didn't know anything until it was all over, a clip shown several
itmes on TV.

Finally, on Saturday, NBC News said that the new report was that
Christie knew quote "all about" the traffic situation, when as I think
you say, and as every other report said, Wildstein's lawyer never used
the word "all".

So NBC's got some 'splainin to do.

BTW, I checked on what explain is in Spanish. It is explicar. So I
doubt Ricky Ricardo would have dropped the first syllable. IIRC my
Cuban stepfather told me, iirc, that Cubans, even poor and rural Cubans
pronounced Spanish clearly. But he may have been biased because I
think someone else told me that ma or meno was typical of Cubans, when
the phrase is actually mas o menos (meaning: more or less), Spanish
speakers have trouble in English pronouncing 3 consonants in a row. I
think that is why beefsteak is spelled biftek or bistek, but never
written or spoken with all three consonants. You can notice plenty
varied examples of this.

Also many words that start with S in English start with ES in spanish.
Espana and Espanol are two of them. But that is the opposite of
dropping the EX in explaining. (Dropping the g at the end might well
be accurate. I forget.)

So I think the writers did that just to make it ever so clear that he
had an accent.

Oops. Sorry about changing the subject from Christie.

And now, back to Christie....

1. Wildstein is claiming evidence exists that Christie knew. He would look bad if such evidence does not come to light.

2. Wildstein spent time with Christie while the lanes were closed. If you had been ordered to close traffic lines for punitive reasons, and you saw the governor, wouldn't you either tell him about it, or else already know he approved? Undertaking an action like that without knowing the governor approved it, and without having any desire to take credit, seems like an implausible motivation.

BTW, it's not really to the Democrats' advantage that this stuff is
coming out now. It would be much better for Dems if it came out 2
years from now, say March 2016, when he was really the front runner and
other Rep. candidates hadn't gotten off the ground because he was so far
ahead of them. By June, when he had, it seems likely, self-destructed,
it would have been too late for another candidate to have a real
campaign, since some primaries and caucuses would already be over and it
takes months to gear up.

Now, there is still plenty of time for a replacement to get his show on
the road.

But the Dems didn't control the timing. Maybe some, probably many, of
the politicians and public employees who started the investigation were
Dems, but they weren't acting in a partisan capacity, but trying to get
to the bottom of something that looked fishy.

3. Christie has changed his story about when he knew about the lane closings. Having first asserted he learned on October 1, Christie later claimed he learned earlier, though would not say when.

4. His campaign manager is pleading the fifth.

5. Carrying out petty retribution is fully in keeping with the pattern of Christie's governing style of using petty retribution.

6. Hell, allegations of abuse of power predate even his governorship. I keep mentioning the report in John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's campaign book about the Romney campaign vetting of Christie, because I find it mystifying that others aren't taking it as seriously as I am. It's not that partisan enemies are ginning up accusations. Republican Mitt Romney wanted to nominate Christie, but took a look at the vetting file and ran the other way:

More than once, Myers reported back that Trenton's response was, in effect, Why do we need to give you that piece of information? Myers told her team, We have to assume if they're not answering, it's because the answer is bad.

The vetters were stunned by the garish controversies lurking in the shadows of his record. There was a 2010 Department of Justice inspector general's investigation of Christie's spending patterns in his job prior to the governorship, which criticized him for being "the U.S. attorney who most often exceeded the government [travel expense] rate without adequate justification" and for offering "insufficient, inaccurate, or no justification" for stays at swank hotels like the Four Seasons. There was the fact that Christie worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the Securities Industry Association at a time when Bernie Madoff was a senior SIA official--and sought an exemption from New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act. There was Christie's decision to steer hefty government contracts to donors and political allies like former Attorney General John Ashcroft, which sparked a congressional hearing. There was a defamation lawsuit brought against Christie arising out of his successful 1994 run to
oust
an incumbent in a local Garden State race. Then there was Todd Christie, the Governor's brother, who in 2008 agreed to a settlement of civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission in which he acknowledged making "hundreds of trades in which customers had been systematically overcharged." (Todd also oversaw a family foundation whose activities and purpose raised eyebrows among the vetters.)

Everything here is circumstantial. Christie definitely comes off as the kind of politician who would order a stunt like this. Possibly he didn't do it. Possibly he did, but it will never be proven. His best-case scenario now appears to be an absence of a smoking gun, and convincing voters not to believe the subordinate pointing a finger at him. It doesn't look good.

Well the question once was, would any other person in the possible
conspiracy blame Christie. We seem to be half way to one person,
yes. Only half way, because all we know he claims is that something
Christie said was false, but not that the alleged truth is
incriminating. If the claim is only that Christie knew there was a
traffic jam when there was one, and then later said he didnt' know then,
that's not so bad.