Saturday, February 27, 2016

Chris Christie Has Sold His Soul


I can't say I've ever liked Gov. Mike Huckabee. If I had any respect for him, it was tossed away when he and Rick Santorum went to Trump's rally during the primetime GOP debate. Mike & Rick, already on the return road to irrelevance, turned themselves into Trump's bumbling henchmen.

Chris Christie was something different. He is still the governor of New Jersey. He was very influential of the Republican Governors Association in 2014 and helped get a few Republican governors get elected. Now he has thrown his career away, and for what? I think Commentary's Noah Rothman said it best:
"Standing beside Donald Trump and endorsing the most unfit man to seek the presidency in my lifetime for the highest office in the land, Christie’s base careerism and disregard for the nation were exposed. Gone was the prosecutor who had ruthlessly fought corruption in New Jersey. In his place was a man defending Trump’s handling of the scam operation Trump University, which pitilessly bilked thousands out of their savings. Gone was the man who had scolded conservatives for indulging to bigotry by presuming an American Muslim jurist had to be an advocate for Sharia Law. Instead, there stood a figure linking arms with a demagogue who had proposed banning any Muslim entry into the United States – a proposal Christie had called “ridiculous” – and who dubiously cites the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 as constitutional precedent. Gone was the “straight talker” who “tells it like it is.” In his place is a man endorsing a serial compulsive liar who seems constitutionally incapable of honesty about himself, his record, or his beliefs, and who tells outrageous and slanderous lies about the heroes of his country and of his party. Gone was the conservative reformer who promised the necessary overhaul of the country’s entitlement programs. Instead, the diminutive figure debasing himself in the shadow of a reality television star now defends the unsustainable status quo in perpetuity and with no regard for fiscal realities. 
"For another few fleeting moments in the intoxicating light of the cable news cameras, Chris Christie has sacrificed every principle for which he once stood. Christie will spend the remainder of the campaign season aggressively compromising his integrity and shouting down anyone who refuses to abide the intolerable stench of hypocrisy that now accompanies his presence. This is a man who pounded the table when the facts were with him. Imagine the spectacle we will be forced to witness now that they’re not."

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