Criticizing Christie
One possible problem with this gleeful open-field-day-on-Christie business is that those who come down hard on him open themselves up to the charge of hypocrisy if they haven’t been just as tough or even tougher on Obama for all the outrages committed by his underlings (supposedly without his knowledge).
Christie may be disliked by conservatives even more than he’s disliked by liberals. Conservatives attack him because they feel he’s not really one of them and is actually a betrayer or at the very least a potential betrayer. Liberals kinda sorta like him, I think, but they are eager to destroy him because they believe he’s a frontrunner for the 2016 Republican nomination and a strong presidential candidate to boot. However, conservatives who attack Christie have the advantage of being consistent about criticizing the much worse (and numerous) offenses people have committed under Obama’s watch, knowledge of which Obama has denied. Liberals who attack Christie and defend and/or minimize the Obama administration’s transgressions have no such cover.
So editorials such as this one at Bloomberg News are perniciously hypocritical to the point of ludicrousness. If you want to see how a party apparatchik writes, take a look if you can stomach it.
The trouble is that too many people read that sort of thing and swallow it whole without reflecting on the comparison between Christie and Obama, failing to notice the hypocrisy and inconsistency. The trouble is that not enough people think when they read. The trouble is that propaganda works. The editors at Bloomberg are counting on that.
I don’t think Christie’s problem is what it seems. I also don’t think much of the Republican seeming criticism toward him is what it seems. Fuel is burned faster in a hotter fire, is all. He was prepped for that fire and they had a plan in place. Simply put, he knew the media knew, and where sitting on, some evidence. He couldn’t have that coming out during his campaign so he chose to dump it now.
I think he was guilty as hell. But I think that is simply typical politics. That is how it works. Like it or not, that’s not my issue and I don’t care. And he was just cleaning house, if potentially in a do or die thing. It was the only way.
Me? I wouldn’t vote for him. He’s a neither a Republican or a Democrat, just another politician and one with allies and money sources on both sides of the thing. Which, sort of, to me, simply makes him less scrupulous than average and more likely to betray whatever sells best, to public opinion or to the dollar. Just a politician looking for a few dollars and hamburgers more.
“open themselves up to the charge of hypocrisy”
Such charges will NEVER happen.
When the press ignores, or even worse, defends a Democrat they are simply “on the right side.”
When the press conducts a witch hunt for Republicans they are simply “doing their job.”
I often believe that they really aren’t aware of their own bias.
Anybody whose IQ is higher than their body temperature knows the media is in the tank (septic) with the Democrats. When I started college, Kennedy and Nixon were running for president. The media loved Kennedy and loathed Nixon. There were gushing adulatory articles about the Kennedy’s. John Kennedy was wonderful and Nixon was awful. Nothing has changed in 50 years
Charles:
Well, of course the charges will never come from the left.
But some thinking Independents were what I had in mind.
Of course there is the school that would say “thinking Independents” is an oxymoron.
Is Bloomberg that stupid or do they just think we are? Either way, bridgegate sure got the negative comments about Hillary! and 0bama and Biden in SecDef Gates’ memoirs off the front page quickly.
Christie will survive–which is a shame because he’s just an overbearing, loudmouthed RINO.
“Rudeness is a weak man’s imitation of strength.” – Eric Hoffer
The trouble is that too many people read that sort of thing and swallow it whole without reflecting on the comparison between Christie and Obama, failing to notice the hypocrisy and inconsistency.
And the reason they don’t is…the lap dog press covers up for Barry.
Snackeater:
You wrote, “Is Bloomberg that stupid or do they just think we are?”
They think we are. Maybe not “we,” exactly (they’re not expecting to convince conservatives or libertarians), but their readers.
I do not for a moment think the editors are that stupid themselves. Although maybe I’m stupid to give them that much credit.
By the way, the Bloomberg editorial was linked today at Real Clear Politics. That site draws a lot of conservative readers, and I believe that’s why so many of the comments to the editorial were negative. I don’t think it would have gone that way otherwise.
I keep coming back to that wonderful analogy someone gave a few days ago.. i can’t remember who put it out, but please come take credit.
I think it went something like: not having the MSM media covering for you is like not having any air cover in your military operation. That says it so well, I am going to use it from now on. Bloomberg is just another fighter squadron for Obama.
Media Rsearch Center is reporting that the Christie coverage is x44 of the IRS scandal proving that there are 2 reasons which trump every other reason to vote Republican, preferrably Conservative.
1. The media will dog a Republican and not let them get away with anything.
2. Conservatives believe in a decentralized government giving power to the people.
So we’re supposed to be outraged at Christie’s petty bridge shutdown after the MSM’s shrugging off of the National Park Service’s unnecessary thuggery throughout the shutdown? Riiiight.
And really, do we have to go through the laundry list of Obama scandals, including those with actual body counts, that the MSM has either ignored or very briefly covered to demonstrate how out of whack this Christie scandal hyperventilation is? No, let the NJ voters care about this one, I’m sitting this one out.
That is a great analogy. I used to call them the T-P Media (Television-Print) but I may change it to the CAS Media (Close Air Support).
Lizzy: “And really, do we have to go through the laundry list of Obama scandals …”
Yes! And again – yes!
Loudly, thoroughly, and repetitively.
Basic Battle of the Narrative.
That’s just the Marxist-method activist game, the only social political game there is.
Neo: “One possible problem with this gleeful open-field-day-on-Christie business is that those who come down hard on him open themselves up to the charge of hypocrisy if they haven’t been just as tough or even tougher on Obama for all the outrages committed by his underlings (supposedly without his knowledge).”
Not a problem when every Obama controversy is fabricated or at least highly blown out of proportion by pathetic petty Republicans, or ignored and wilfully forgotten.
Snackeater, 6:49 pm — “I used to call them the T-P Media (Television-Print) but I may change it to the CAS Media (Close Air Support).”
For M J R, “enemedia” does the job *splendidly*. [NOTE — the term “enemedia” is not original with M J R; I wish I recalled now where I first read it.]
Marxism is not the only social or political game around.
The methods they use have been long known by human tacticians and strategists. Marxism was merely invented specifically to counter and destroy Western civilization.
Marxism is not really a competitor to more socialism. It’s just a weapon.
I just read this piece by Andy McCarthy on Bridgegate. I didn’t realize that the gridlock induced by the lane closures lasted for four days. That makes Christie’s excuses look pathetic. A Governor would have responded to such a major traffic disruption within 24 hours. The order to his people would have been “Fix it, NOW!”. It got fixed, not by Christie, but by Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
I don’t want to see a Chicago thug President replaced by a New Jersey thug President.
A democrat scandal is “regrettable, a lapse of judgment, a slip, only human, not really serious,” or many other such rationalizations. A Republican scandal, on the other hand, is an evil, world shaking event that requires immediate remedy – if possible by a special prosecutor. Compare this to the Valerie Plame scandal. Not really a big deal and the identity of the outer, Richard Armitage, was known almost immediately, but that didn’t end the witch hunt. This inside New Jersey politics scandal is not really a big deal either. Except that it offers an opportunity to destroy a Republican – one who might pose a threat to Hillary in 2016. It also provides the opportunity to divert attention from democrat scandals.
There will be no real investigation of the IRS overreach against the TEA Party nor will there be much news coverage of it. Bridgegate is already on its way to a high level DOJ investigation and the news coverage will be daily and front page.
All the better to blunt any interest in/coverage of Benghazi, the IRS, Obamacare, and Robert Gates’ revelations about Obama/Hillary/Biden. They (the MSM) are a veritable blitzkrieg machine ready and willing to destroy any obstacle to maintaining democrat power.
Protein Wisdom has a post that will richly repay your attention and time:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=52429#comments
The People’s Republic of California holding a “Public Commentary” meeting with the
citizenskulaks to allow them to “vote” on pre-ordained methods of the Government taking control over their private property, up to and including confiscation.Watch the whole thing: it gets better and better as it goes along, and the reactions of the citizens and the Government Numpties are priceless.
More seriously: this is part of the Left’s move on all fronts to strip all rights of ownership from the individual, which means enslaving us all (as our Founding Fathers well knew: without property rights, you have no liberty).
I hope you all watch it and do, please, pass it on.
Physicsguy:
Re the “air superiority” analogy, I don’t recall who first mentioned it here, but the first time I saw it was on one of Bill Whittle’s “Firewall” videos about three months ago and I believe he attributed it to Glenn Reynolds.
I tried Googling that episode of Firewall but couldn’t find it. However, I did find an essay by Whittle called Bamboo Spears, in which he discusses and expounds on this analogy at some length.
Unfortunately, it’s an analogy that is all too apt and the BridgeGate media frenzy has been a good example of it at work.
Ymarsakar,
Marxist-METHOD differentiated from Marxist ideas.
“The trouble is that too many people read that sort of thing and swallow it whole without reflecting on the comparison between Christie and Obama…”
That is a big part of “the trouble” we have as a civilization now. It’s always “too many people” who…
It’s time we went after the “too many people” who are “the trouble” and call them out.
I am about fed up with them. They need to step up and stop being “the trouble”. Until then they deserve zero benefits or considerations. Zero.
Beverly, anytime you see/hear the words sustainable or Agenda 21, you can be sure it is about central planning and the end of private property. It is everywhere now. In my county there is a project called Skagit – 2060. It’s all about getting rid of private property, crowding people into dense urban areas, and eliminating all but public modes of transportation.
This is a movement that must be resisted at all costs. Fortunately, the citizens in the video smelled the tyranny and frustrated the “facilitators.”
}}} Liberals who attack Christie and defend and/or minimize the Obama administration’s transgressions have no such cover.
Actually, no, the hilarious thing is that no respectable conservative or libertarian would seriously suggest Christie has A-1 chance in hell of becoming the GOP nominee. His star is SOooooo 6 years ago. In the ensuing half-decade he’s ticked off Conservatives time and again by doing things that so clearly qualify as “RINOish”, including all the Obama “butt sniffing” he was doing after Sandy hit the greater NYC area…
I do not believe he can untarnish his image that thoroughly. I certainly can’t see myself voting for him in the primaries.
But what the Left is doing is reversing your observation — they’re “nominating” Christie for PotUS — citing him as supposed GOP presidential material — then claiming The Right is being hypocritical for claiming he’s not responsible for his staff, “but Obama is??”
That it’s a straw man built entirely by themselves is lost on them.
“That it’s a straw man built entirely by themselves is lost on them.”
It’s not lost on them. It’s SOP. They’re propagandists.