New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hoped he could have put down the story about the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge.

His marathon press conference this morning didn’t do the job. It only has fanned the flames.

The battle lines are being drawn. Republicans say the kerfuffle is a diversion from the Affordable Care Act debate. Democrats say the growing scandal speaks to a possible extreme abuse of power by the Republican governor.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/09/embarrassed_christie_fires_aide_in_bridge_scandal_121179.html

Christie fired a couple of key aides today. One of them, his former deputy chief of staff, reportedly is the author of an email that said it was “time for a traffic” jam on the bridge. The lanes were closed allegedly as payback for the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, N.J.’s refusal to endorse Christie’s re-election. Christie said he knew nothing about the email until just two days ago.

This is a big deal because Christie is considered a probable candidate for president in 2016. He’s sold himself as a hands-on, no-nonsense chief executive. Yet this situation seems to suggest the governor had his hands off the levers of power while his underlings went rogue right under his nose.

Let’s not dismiss this as much ado about nothing. This is the kind of story that gets the media worked up, kind of like it did over the Benghazi disaster in September 2012, the phony controversy over President Obama’s place of birth, and the IRS probe of political action groups’ tax-exempt status … to name just three recent examples.

This is how the game is played. Gov. Christie had better steel himself for a rough ride.