True to form, Chris Christie defended the legality of his warrantless surveillance, blasting the ACLU for engaging in "overblown hyperbole."
ENTER GOVERNOR CHRISTIE:
Despite largely favorable media coverage and superlative adjectives often lavished upon him by his supporters, Chris Christie's reign as Governor of New Jersey has been largely confrontational and definitely controversial. Anyone caught off guard by Bridgegate or expressing faith in the Governor's innocence based on high opinions of his character are either in denial, simply have not been paying attention, or share his hubris and sense of entitlement.
EDUCATION: WHAT'S A LITTLE PRIVATIZATION AMONG FRIENDS?
Governor Christie has become a strong advocate for expanding for-profit, privately managed schools in k-12 education, championing school voucher expansion while slashing as much as $1.6 billion in state funding of public schools and waging a public war with the teachers union.
When it comes to Chris Christy advocacy, acting on the old adage "follow the money," can often be revealing. According to "Think Progress," Christie's "public-private school pilot program" was designed with the assistance of Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf, the, former president of Edison Schools, Inc., the world's largest for-profit operator of public schools. During his career as a lobbyist, Christie's law firm, Dughi, Hewit and Palatucci, acted as a registered lobbyist for Edison Schools. The firm also represented Mosaica Education, a for-profit charter school operator, and the University of Phoenix, a for-profit online university on whose behalf Christie personally lobbied.
OR A PIDDLING $400 MILLION EDUCATION GRANT?
Christie found himself on the receiving end of harsh criticism in August 2010 when it was revealed that New Jersey had narrowly missed out on a $400 million federal education grant because of a flawed application. This particular incident is notable because it has many elements in common with Bridgegate where Christie accused his Deputy of lying to him, fired her, and subsequently threw her under the bus. In the case of the education grant Christy accused his Education Commissioner, Bret Schundler, of deliberately misleading him, fired him, and then threw him under the bus. Unlike bridgegate, however, Schundler was not about to go quietly. Instead, Schundler, risked the legendary Christie wrath by daring to hold Christie accountable. Schundler revealed that Christie had never been all that excited by the grant opportunity in the first place. The Governor had told him the "money was not worth it" if it meant he had to cooperate with teachers. Schundler said he would have been willing to take the fall for the loss of the grant, but "I will not accept being defamed by the Governor for something he knows I did not do." "The Governor called me a liar this week. That was the last straw." Schundler said he was unwilling to accept any further character assassination directed his way by Christie. Investigations by the New Jersey Star Ledger and TPMMuckraker aided by e-mails supplied by Schundler established that if anyone was lying it was Christie. Loss of the grant was precipitated by incorrect budget data on the forms, resulting in a loss of 4.8 points in a competition New Jersey lost by only 3 points. According to Schundler, Christie had decided to hold a press conference where he would accept responsibility for the mistake that had cost New Jersey the loss of the of the grant (much as he accepted responsibility for the closing of the Fort Lee traffic lanes), but then planned to blame President Obama for refusing to allow New Jersey to correct the error. Schundler told Christie that his office had made no attempt to correct the error even after it was discovered, because the rules of the competition were clear about allowing no revisions once the paperwork had been submitted. Schundler told TPMMuckraker that he had made this "crystal clear" to Christie prior to Christie's press conference. Christie proceeded with the press conference in which he stuck with the original script, which he now knew to be a lie, blaming the Obama administration for not allowing the officials to fix the error, and further claiming, falsely, that Schundler had tried to provide data to the officials. "He just went out there and said the very thing I told him explicitly not to say," Schundler said. "I don't know that he said it intentionally, but he let loose. It's incomprehensible to me that he didn't understand what I said to him."
It turns out that the error in the forms really was Schundler's, and he says that was justification enough for his firing (though not the reason he was fired). What is more relevant is Christie's willingness to lie in order to shift blame away from himself when something goes wrong, and his comfort with smearing his own officials when doing so is convenient.
HURRICANE SANDY RELIEF ADS -- DOESN'T THE GOVERNOR HAVE A LOVELY FAMILY?
Governor Christie received high praise for his handling of Hurricane Sandy, and for his willingness to work in a non-partisan fashion with President Obama, but even this is now beginning to taint the Governor in ways that once seemed unimaginable. There are those commercials intended to let the world know that New Jersey was back and open for business and tourism, ads paid for with Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund money. The winning bid, submitted by a politically-connected firm, cost the tax payers $4.7 million. A proposal that would have done the job quite well that would have cost only $2.5 million was rejected. The notable difference between the winning and losing bids was that the more expensive winning bid included a major starring role for the Governor and his family while the losing bid did not. The ethics of even producing such an ad was questionable given that the Governor was running for re-election, and every time the ad appeared it would have (and in fact did) functioned as free, expensively produced advertising for the incumbent Governor. The Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development conducted a preliminary investigation into the matter and concluded that a full investigation is justified.
HURRICANE SANDY: PAY TO PLAY IN HOBOKEN?
One has to wonder if Governor Christie's currently weakened and defensive situation is tempting the apparent legion of people he has bullied and offended into striking back while he is down and the iron is hot. That may well be the case with Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer who came forward last weekend to tell her tale about how disaster relief funds for Hoboken, one of the worst-stricken cities by Hurricane Sandy, were allegedly held hostage in an effort to win her support for a redevelopment project that would have done little for Hoboken, but was strongly supported by Governor Christie and a handful of his close friends. This incident too is now under investigation and is in the media spotlight.
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It would be an exaggeration to suggest that this article barely scratches the surface of dark side of Chris Christie (though who knows how many dark episodes have yet to see the light of day), but I did leave a great deal out because I was, after all, writing an article, not a book. The pattern would seem to be undeniable, the Machiavellian tendencies clear. This writer remains perplexed how this Teflon politician has managed to win over Democrats, the media, even a progressive or two.
I was reminded of Richard Nixon recently, and his famous "I am not a crook" speech delivered to the nation on November 17, 1973, less than nine months before he resigned the presidency in disgrace on August 8, 1974. On January 9, 2014 Chris Christie awakened a feeling of déj vû in me when he told the assembled media: "I am not a bully." Is history about to repeat itself? One can only hope.
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