{"id":4605,"date":"2014-02-01T16:30:39","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T16:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=4605"},"modified":"2014-02-01T16:30:39","modified_gmt":"2014-02-01T16:30:39","slug":"christie-scandal-getting-pretty-darn-curious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4605","title":{"rendered":"Christie &#8216;scandal&#8217; getting pretty darn curious"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>My friends on the right are outraged at the &#8220;mainstream media&#8217;s&#8221; addiction to the Chris Christie &#8220;Bridgegate&#8221; scandal.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;d better get used to it, because it doesn&#8217;t appear as though it&#8217;s going to wither away any time soon.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2014\/01\/chris-chris-new-jersey-george-washington-bridge-scandal-david-wildstein-102977.html?hp=t1<\/p>\n<p>A letter has surfaced now that suggests Christie knew <em>at the time <\/em>that one of his key aides ordered the closing of lanes on the George Washington Bridge, the busiest span in the world &#8212; and that it might have been in retaliation for the refusal by Fort Lee, N.J.&#8217;s Democratic mayor to endorse the Republican governor&#8217;s re-election effort.<\/p>\n<p>The letter&#8217;s assertion contradicts Christie&#8217;s statement that he didn&#8217;t know anything until he read about it in the press.<\/p>\n<p>This is what happens when a high-profile politician who portrays himself in a certain manner is accused of doing things that run counter to that public image. Christie, who many people believe wants to run for president in 2016, has cast himself as a hands-on, no-nonsense chief executive. If that&#8217;s the case, then how could he <em>not<\/em> know that his chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, would order the lanes closed, resulting in a horrendous traffic bottleneck.<\/p>\n<p>Now we learn about alleged misuse of federal relief funds dedicated to help New Jersey residents recover from Superstorm Sandy.<\/p>\n<p>No one has accused Christie of ordering lane shutdown himself. Frankly, I don&#8217;t think he would be so stupid. <\/p>\n<p>However, this controversy is beginning to take on a life of its own the way other controversies have grown into full-blown scandals. <\/p>\n<p>Two examples stand out: The Watergate burglary in 1972 turned from a criminal investigation into a constitutional crisis involving presidential abuse of power; Whitewater turned from a probe into Bill and Hillary Clinton&#8217;s real estate ventures into a scandal that involved a presidential dalliance with a White House intern and his lying under oath to a federal grand jury about whether he did those nasty things with the young woman.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s looking as though, regarding Gov. Christie&#8217;s involvement in this bridge lane-closing, that history may be about to repeat itself.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My friends on the right are outraged at the &#8220;mainstream media&#8217;s&#8221; addiction to the Chris Christie &#8220;Bridgegate&#8221; scandal. They&#8217;d better get used to it, because it doesn&#8217;t appear as though it&#8217;s going to wither away any time soon. http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2014\/01\/chris-chris-new-jersey-george-washington-bridge-scandal-david-wildstein-102977.html?hp=t1 A letter has surfaced now that suggests Christie knew at the time that one of his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4605\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Christie &#8216;scandal&#8217; getting pretty darn curious<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[631,749,965,2139,5206,5256],"class_list":["post-4605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-clinton","tag-bridgegate","tag-chris-christie","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-watergate","tag-whitewater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}