The Education of Chris Christie

An article in today's New York Times discusses New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's break with MSNBC, a network that he had assiduously courted to burnish his credentials as a Republican who could reach across the aisle. MSNBC has been running daily 25 hour coverage of the New Jersey Conegate scandal and Christie understandably objects. Christie now joins McCain and past Republicans who MSNBC championed only to villify once it was in the interest of the Democrat party to do so. 

The original deal in these cases is structured as follows: MSNBC gets to portray itself as an objective news organization (we don't hate ALL Republicans!) and, of course, the Republican gets to appear as someone who Liberals can perhaps tolerate (if they must). In EVERY instance, however, the Republican eventually gets burned. Put your hand too close to the crocodile's mouth and, sooner or later, it will get bitten. 

Here, MSNBC recognized that the only thing that was going to deflect attention from the recent damning report claiming State Department culpability in the Benghazi tragedy - and the negative impact on Hillary Clinton - was something big. No doubt MSNBC would have preferred to defer wall-to-wall coverage of the Conegate scandal until Christie became the Republican nominee, but they simply could not wait. And it has worked. What report on Benghazi?

Christie will survive Conegate and has hopefully learned an important lesson. Never trust the Legitimate Media (Joe Biden's characterization of the non-Fox media). Keep your guard up at all times. Never trust MSNBC. They are not your friends. 

The Mirrored Dusk

Profiles in Stupidity
The Justice Department will significantly expand its definition of racial profiling to prohibit federal agents from considering religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation in their investigations, a government official said Wednesday.

The move addresses a decade of criticism from civil rights groups that say federal authorities have in particular singled out Muslims in counterterrorism investigations and Latinos for immigration investigations. (New York Times, 1/16/2014)

And so, because terrorism is inextricably tied to radical Islam and illegal immigration to Latinos, profiling is now prohibited. This makes perfect sense if you are a Liberal. We already know, of course, what will happen the very next time an Islamist succeeds in blowing something up and killing Americans. Liberals will demand a Congressional investigation while demanding to know how this could have happened. 


Uncivil
More than six years later, the onetime constitutional lawyer is now the commander in chief presiding over a surveillance state that some of his own advisers think has once again gotten out of control. On Friday, he will give another speech, this time at the Justice Department defending government spying even as he adjusts it to address a wave of public concern over civil liberties. (New York Times, 1/16/2014)

Dick Cheney smiles...

Yet it is hard to express indignation at actions of the government after five years of running it, and some involved in surveillance note that it was Mr. Obama who pushed national security agencies to be aggressive in hunting terrorists. “For some, his outrage does ring a little bit hollow,” said a former counterterrorism official. (New York Times, 1/16/2014)

...and smiles again.


The Sting
A stinging report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released Wednesday concluded that the attack 16 months ago that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, could have been prevented, singling out the State Department for criticism for its failure to bolster security in response to intelligence warnings about a growing security crisis around the city. (New York Times, 1/16/2014)

Twenty-eight paragraphs on Benghazi and 2016 Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's name is mentioned exactly twice. (Those who follow Washington closely may recall that Clinton was Secretary of State at the time of the Benghazi attacks.) One of the citations references a Republican addendum to the report criticizing Clinton. So, of course, that is entirely political.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that the average number of times that Chris Christie's name is mentioned in articles on Conegate is forty-seven.


Uninspired
An accountable democracy doesn’t work without real information, gathered from the ground up, about people in power, everywhere. Be inspired by the beleaguered but unintimidated reporters of Chris Christie’s New Jersey: Whatever your partisan affiliation, or lack thereof, subscribe to your local paper today. It’s an act of civic virtue. (Rachel Maddow, Washington Post, 1/15/2014)

Maddow celebrates the small town Jersey reporters who doggedly pursued the Christie-Conegate scandal shedding a light on political corruption. It is this same dedication and perseverance that Maddow employed in her quest to get at the truth about Benghazi and the IRS targeting of conservative groups. 

Or are we remembering that wrong?