Chris Christie's doom

It's so easy to destroy a politician; to make it impossible for anyone to take him seriously ever again. Dan Quayle did himself in when he spelled potato wrongly; he was forever branded as stupid. No brilliant idea or action could save him from the wrath of the evil potatoe. His political career went up in smoke.

Edmund Muskie is an example of the same thing from the other side of the aisle. He had tears in his eyes at some political event and was ever after regarded as a sniveling idiot. And don't forget Michael Dukakis in the tank. No amount of military weaponry could save him after that.

Now it's Chris Christie's turn. The news media tried to go after him for being fat, but the American people were not impressed; they could afford to lose a few pounds themselves and did not hold his excessive avoirdupois against him.  After all, their ancestors had elected William Howard Taft to the Presidency, and he had to have a new bathtub ordered especially for him.

But Christie has finally met his match. He submitted his e-mails and all his correspondence to a committee which found him guiltless, but a lot of good that did him. All his opponents have to do is say "George Washington Bridge" and no-one, including the Pope, can save his political career. The chinek hackers are after him, and will pound on that tea kettle forever.

George Washington Bridge scandal--or is it?

The brouhaha about theGeorge Washington Bridge scandal raises some questions about the intelligence and efficacy of the plotters.  The lane closings were meant to wreak vengeance on the mayor and citizens of Fort Lee, but did that happen?  Most of the frustrated drivers who were inconvenienced at the bridge were simply traveling through Fort Lee.  Fort Lee was not their destination; they simply had to go through it  to get from Point A to Point B.

Most people who use the GWB come from elsewhere, not necessarily even elsewhere in New Jersey.  People commute from as far away as Upstate New York and Pennsylvania.  They take the bridge (or one of the tunnels) because Manhattan is  an island; they work on the island, but live elsewhere.  So in what way did these lane closings single out the residents of Fort Lee?  This was just a bunch of dumb politicians playing games with the public welfare because they could.  I can't imagine Christie having anything to do with it.   He seems to me an intelligent man and an effective politician.

It's terribly frustrating to commute via the bridge at all.  I once lived in Westchester County but worked in New Jersey.  It took me an hour and a half to get  20 miles to work.   By the time I arrived at my destination I was a gibbering idiot.  It took me an hour to calm down.  On evenings when there was a baseball game at Yankee Stadium, it took two and a half hours.  In fact, I sometimes headed up to the Tappan Zee Bridge just to avoid the inevitable traffic jams on the GWB.