Bridgegate

Hi Everyone,

This past week has shown that seemingly intelligent people can and will do the most stupidest things imaginable and then think that they can get away with it. Of course the people I am talking about here are all politicians and we all know how they can act.

This story actually began last September, 2013, when there were 3 lane closures on the entrance to the George Washington Bridge. The lane closures happened in Fort Lee, New Jersey and the closures lasted 4 days in a row. As all the traffic backed up into Fort Lee, it created a nightmare of a monster traffic jam. The Fort Lee roads that turned into parking lots, stopped children on school buses from getting to school on time. It also hindered police from pursuing a person. If there had been a fire, firetrucks would not have been able to get to the fire in a timely manner if they could have gotten there at all.

Fast forward to last week and we learn that New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie's Deputy Chief of Staff and the person Christie appointed to the Port Authority of NY and NJ's board had colluded to avenge political revenge on Fort Lee's Mayor. After a day of silence, (which Christie attributed to his investigating the allegations made by a New Jersey news organization), he held a news conference where he spoke and answered questions for almost 2 hours. Christie immediately accepted blame for the incident and apologized. He stated that he had fired his Deputy Chief of Staff and the PA NY&NJ appointment. What we learned last week was that the Mayor of Fort Lee, a Democrat, did not support Governor Christie's campaign for re-election. So Christie's Deputy Chief of Staff called the PA appointed board person to shut down 3 lanes at the Fort Lee entrance to the GB Bridge to create traffic havoc in Fort Lee. Christie also stated that he was not aware of the scandal until the day before he investigated it. He also said that how could he possibly know what every one of the State's 65,000 employees are doing. He did apologize for the jokes he made when the traffic jams began since he thought it was just from a traffic study.

So on the face of it, it appeared that Christie had done all the right things to try to stay on top of the scandal. He investigated the incident for a day and then held a news conference where he accepted blame for what happened and apologized. Then he said that he had fired the 2 people involved. All seemed right in Christieville. He had done the right thing, but did he really do the right thing? So lets take a look at Governor Christie. Christie is known as a no nonsense, tell it like it is guy with a type 1 personality and who runs a very tight ship. When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey in October 2012, he was right on top of the situation and worked very closely with the Obama administration to get help to his State asap. But when there was a huge traffic jam for 4 days, involving one of this Country's most iconic and most traveled upon bridge, he made jokes and accepted the explanation given to him that it was caused by a traffic study. For a seemingly intelligent person, Christie accepted that explanation and went with it for months. He never looked into it more deeply or even asked more pointed questions to his staff. A PA spokesperson stated that the PA has never, ever closed lanes to do a traffic study! Christie had to have known that fact, but still he didn't investigate. Why? The PA spokesperson also said that there were communications between, the PA, Fort Lee and the Governor's office. But still Christie says he was not aware of the scandal and what was happening in his own, hand selected, most inner staff? That just doesn't seem possible for a Governor who runs such a tight ship. I do agree with Christie, that no one person could ever know what 65,000 employees are doing. But a good manager, HAS to know what their own hand picked staff is doing at all times. Christie has failed in being able to manage his own staff and proved that even his hand picked staff was not trustworthy. How sad! That certainly doesn't bode well for him in his ability to pick qualified people. 

FYI, the news organization that broke this story had FOIL'd, (Freedom Of Information Act) Christie's office for information regarding this. Part of what they wanted were relevant emails. Christie's office replied that there were no relevant emails. Well, low and behold now the emails have surfaced. How is that possible? Who lied and said there were no emails? How stupid for those fired people not to know that emails are permanent??? But how could Christie not have known all of this? If, by chance, Christie really didn't know about this when and after it was happening, there has to be a whole lot more people involved in the massive cover up. It that really possible? I don't think so. Just based on the few facts that we now know, the current Federal and State investigations will undoubtedly reveal more facts that will probably not fare well for Christie. Especially if the investigations prove that Christie lied during his news conference.

As a side note, I found it very telling when, during this morning's Face the Nation news program; when asked about the Christie Bridgegate scandal, Republican Senator Marco Rubio basically said that he had no comment since all of the facts are not known. Had the governor been a Democrat, Rubio would have most certainly demanded his head or at least a resignation. This whole sad story shows what a sorry state of affairs our political system is in; when political payback means screw the people, who you represent, by creating on purpose traffic jams for not endorsing a candidate. When will this insanity stop? This again proves that a lot of politicians just don't have any common sense what so ever.

Til next week.

Peter