The recent actions of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his staff confirmed what I
discovered long ago: We all graduate from elementary school but a lot of people still act like
they are still in the third grade.
I guess some people on Christie's staff were upset the Democratic mayor of of Fort Lee didn't
endorse the Republic governor in his most recent election. So what did they do? They created
a massive traffic jam in the New Jersey town of 37, 500 by closing lanes leading up to the
George Washington. Anybody who has traveled over that bridge knows what a cluster brick
that can be when things are running smoothly, much less when it has two lanes closed. You
want to know why there is road rage and motorists kill each other? Yeah, adding two hours
to a commute will do that to you.
This act of grade-school childish behavior was allegedly the result of mayor Mark Sokolich
not endorsing Christie during the last campaign. Christie won! Could you imagine what would
have happen if Christie lost? Sokolich probably would've wound up as fish food like "Big Pussy"
did in the Sopranos
When the scandal broke, Christie, of course, said he had no knowledge of the scheme by his
staff to cause a little inconvenience in Fort Lee. President Ronald Reagan said the same thing
about his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair in 1982. Yep, I'm running the country and my
staff didn't let me know what up was up. It was a great acting job by the former actor turned
politician, but most people with more than two ounces of intelligence believed that Reagan
knew what was up and his staffers were just covering for the president. In politics, that's
pretty much standard operating procedure.
Bridget Anne Kelly didn't take the fall, she was thrown under the bus in 'Bridgegate'.
Christie's top advisor authored the e-mail that said it was "time for a little traffic problem i
n Fort Lee.' Christie said Kelly was fired not because of the e-mail, but rather because she
lied to him. Yeah, whatever. If people, especially in politics, got fired every time they
lied, there would be nobody left in politics.
Stop and think for a moment about this 'Bridgegate' thing for a second. Grown ups
were upset because a mayor in a tiny New Jersey town didn't endorse the governor during
an election that he eventually WON! That's right, put the screws to the mayor and the
sledgehammer to hundreds of thousands of commuters who are trying to make a living
and put food on the table.
Last May, Governor Christie criticized the administration at Rutgers for the way in which
they handled the Mike Rice-player abuse scandal. Ironically, in that case, the school's president
who said he didn't bother to view the tape of Rice firing missiles at his players, didn't take
any of the blame for the situation and passed the buck onto athletic director Tim Pernetti
whom he ended up firing.
I always find it sad when grown-ups, especially ones in politics, wax poetic about doing
the right thing, making good decisions, and being good examples for young people in
this country. Then BOOM! Quicker than you can say (name just about any politician in
the country) they act like a child and get involved in a scandal that reveals there true
character, not to mention their age (between 6-10)
'Bridgegate' revealed the character of many political folks in New Jersey and it all showed
that most of them are stuck in the third grade. Christie might lose out on his chance to
become president. Kelly, his top adviser, lost her job. Hundreds of thousands of people
sat in mind-numbing traffic and lost something they can't ever get back: time. Everybody
lost just because people wanted to stick it to a small town mayor after an election their
boss won.
How childish.
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