CHRIS CHRISTIE’S BULLY PROBLEM
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304347904579308821538581290?mod=Opinion_newsreel_4
Now that he’s been re-elected by a landslide, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is gearing up to run for President, and right behind him comes the scrutiny. That’s why his handling of a blooming scandal about political payback by his staff against Fort Lee, New Jersey’s Democratic mayor has national resonance.
In September a series of lane closures slowed traffic onto the George Washington Bridge, a main commuter artery from New Jersey into New York City. The Governor’s appointees at first said that the lanes were closed as part of a bungled traffic study. Mr. Christie, for his part, alternated between dismissing the story and joking about it.
Now emails subpoenaed by New Jersey’s Democratic-led Assembly suggest that the closures were intended simply to create problems in the town that sits on the Jersey side of the Hudson River crossing. “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” a top Christie aide wrote in August to a Christie ally at the Port Authority, which controls the bridge. “Got it,” he responded.
Once the delays began the following month, Mr. Christie’s appointees emailed each other to confirm that Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich’s urgent phone calls would not be returned. The mayor had declined to endorse Mr. Christie for re-election.
After the emails became public Wednesday, Mr. Christie was initially silent. But later in the day his office released a statement: “What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better.” He vowed to hold people “responsible for their actions.”
We trust Mr. Christie knows this isn’t a test of his staff but of his own credibility. America doesn’t need—after a year of revelations that the IRS was turned against President Obama’s opponents—another chief executive willing to condone government attacks on his political adversaries. And Republicans don’t need a presidential nominee who fulfills the liberal stereotype that he’s a political bully.
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