Christie’s 180 on Trump fascinates, confounds

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Let’s see how this tracks.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, while campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, said that Donald J. Trump is “unfit” to become president.

“We aren’t electing an entertainer in chief,” Christie famously said of his rival. We are electing a commander in chief, he added, and Trump didn’t measure up to the standards required to hold that all-important job.

Then he got beat in New Hampshire. Christie suspended his campaign and this week he tossed all those vibes about Trump out and said he is the “one man” who can lead America.

Politics does have this way of changing one’s stated position. Whether it changes one’s heart and soul, though, cannot be determined.

Check out the endorsement.

He said an interesting thing that deservesĀ just a bit ofĀ parsing.

Christie — while making his announcement as well as over the course of the next day and a half — said Trump is the one candidate who will guarantee that “Hillary and Bill Clinton will not get within 10 miles of the White House.”

Hmmm. Think about that for a minute.

Would a President Trump — my hands stillĀ tremble when I type those two words next to each other — impose some kind of travel restriction on the former secretary of state? Would he restrict her movement through, say, an executive order?

It’s also interesting that he would include the 42nd president of the United States in that restriction. For crying out loud, governor! The man was elected twice to the very office you once sought.

Oh well, back to reality.

I guess Gov. Christie — who used to impress me as a man of principle and his own brand of panache — has performed the Big Daddy of Flip Flops in endorsing the man he once called “unfit” for the presidency.