Thursday, January 9, 2014

RINO Hunting on the Meadowlands

Well, it has happened.

It's all over.

Yep, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's quest for that "strange new respect"  award has run its bizarre course. The award, as described by British-American commentator and pundit Tom Bethell, is reserved for,
"once-reliable conservatives who won liberal praise by adopting liberal policies. Of a sudden, an erstwhile Neanderthal would be treated in the Washington Post as someone who was no longer 'simplistic' and “shrill” but rather a figure who had 'grown' and showed himself to be 'nuanced.''' 
To be fair, the Guv never really got a full run at the nomination. He was only lately coming out of the shadow of his union-busting image. In his quest for the award, of course, Christie tripped up Romney in the closing days of the presidential campaign with a Laurel-and-Hardy-like promenade with Obama in the wake of Storm Sandy. He also declined to name a Republican Senator to fill the term of the late Senator Lautenberg, when an extra GOP vote in the Senate would have proven very useful. He paved the way, instead, for Demo-corruptocrat Corey Booker. Christie's poll numbers began to rise, and that might have been the death-knell for his seeking of the Bethell Award. Even liberal-leaning polling found him deadlocked with the liberals' anointed successor, Hillary "Benghazi" Clinton. The charging RINO had to be brought down with the modern day political equivalent of the .577 Nitro Express, i.e., leaked emails.

It seems that some aide sought revenge on the obscure Democrat Mayor of Ft. Lee, New Jersey for failing to back Christie. How was this revenge exacted? In the time-honored way of local machine politics: screw with the ability of citizens to go about their normal activities and let an opponent take the hit. This aide apparently suggested to the appropriate bridge authority that rush hour might be a good time to enact some traffic-snarling lane closures on the approaches to NYC. As I write this, the Guv is giving a long, rambling, and sweaty news conference where he is explaining, apologizing, firing, bobbing and weaving. Will he save himself? Was he involved in the lane closings? Did the aide act on her own? Did he, a la Obama, only find out about the skullduggery by reading the press? Will he blame it on a YouTube video? I don't know. That's not my concern today. 

I am, however, very intrigued by the vehemence with which the MSM has jumped on this rather pedestrian story of petty urban politics. This is, after all, the stuff of American urban legend. Cross the Mayor of Chicago, and the garbage doesn't get picked up on your street, the potholes don't get filled, and you won't see a snow plow all winter. This is the kind of act that Democrat urban machines do all over the country just about every day; I am sure readers can come up with all sorts of examples.

Did I say "urban politics"?  Forgive me for that slip. We, after all, have in the White House a politician schooled in this sort of thing, and he has been applying it well outside of just local urban politics. He won his Senate seat, for example, but leaking lurid details of his opponent's "sealed" divorce case. As President, he has used the IRS, the National Labor Relations Board, National Park Service, and the EPA to suppress political dissent, reward cronies, and screw with the public, e.g., closing parks, so they will blame his opponents. His DOJ has a long track record of conducting politically-motivated prosecutions, and of interfering in local cases for political reasons, e.g., the Zimmerman case. The media has given his misadministration passes on all those and more, e..g, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, and on and on. Now we have calls for federal prosecutors to investigate the closing of a couple of traffic lanes; we have once somnolent journalists suddenly jarred into action asking "penetrating" questions of the sort they never have asked Obama, Holder, Reid, Pelosi, etc.    

I can't decide if we have a mass media of double standards or one with no standards.


33 comments:

  1. Double, definitely.

    Or maybe ... it is attributed to some general unknown to me that, vis-a-vis men and women, the Army doesn't (of course) have double standards: it has *dual* standards.

    ReplyDelete
  2. paul vincent zecchinoJanuary 9, 2014 at 9:34 PM

    First we had Ann Coulter giggling over this warthog stand-in like some crush-struck schoolgirl. For a conservative, she's forgotten the Cold War maxim: think thru your brain, not your crotch.

    More western businessmen and officials got themselves into trouble, Cold War visits to Moscow, by thinking thru the latter. You know the drill: Moscow 'tourguide' takes visiting western pigeon to hotel. A few drinks. Introduces to fine sovietskii friends. A couple/three vodkas. Western visitor is soon gassed.


    Next think, B&W photos appear in western newspapers, visiting official/businessman seen blowing lunch out hotel window, showering passers-by below, with the girlie - 'starling' or 'swallow' - in the background.

    Can't get all sloppy over these Christie types. They're into too much: all the food. The booze. The egos. No good.


    That said, vindictiveness is practiced daily and with great vigor and panache by the current foreign occupier against his many enemies. And boy, does the Left ever have enemies.

    Benghazi? Solyndra? IRS? Rev. Wright's DOA choirboys? No? Nothing there for the marxstream media? Just this Ft. Lee Foulup?


    Endless distractions. Oh, look! Guys' over there, blowin' lunch, the carpet! Get the GRU photographer!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Perhaps, the day when Walter Cronkite announced that the Tet offense was so devastating that the war was certainly lost, and from that statement, it was.
    This is when the press realized that it could go from reporting the news to making the news. Opinions began to matter, and overtime one world outlook took over the nation’s newsroom.
    The Internet gives those of us who don’t like the taste of what the media is serving alternatives in websites such as Instapundit, Drudge, PJ Media, and of course Diplomad.
    On the Chris Christie subject, he did more than the president when confronted with “scandal” (Firings of maybe guilty parties, and taking responsibility to a certain extent). President Obama could count the network media to cover for him. Governor Christie cannot.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Methinks, just as well. I've never cottoned to the looks or politics of Christie. I want a man, who looks like a man, running my country, not someone who looks like a refugee from the local MacDonald’s kitchen.

    I want him to look like he can go eyeball to eyeball with the enemy and not have to hold 'a la Obombama's' arm whilst staring wistfully northward for self-vindication. Visions of this tub of lard going eyeball to eyeball with DB ‘Dodging Bullets’ Clinton in the debates was causing me sleepless nights. Max.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Christie can always get work with hussein obama as his personal beach docent. I just don't care for his policies. He is the ghost of elections past!

      Delete
  5. If you're counting votes, mine is that this mass media have NO standards.

    Mark Levin said on his radio program today that Christie is toast. His reason? Christie talked too much -- should have shut up at around the 15 minute mark.

    I think lots of people who heard Christie live will forgive his traffic-snarling, but since I did not watch the MSM coverage this evening I don't know how it was spun and that will probably influence American opinions more than what Christie said of how long he talked.

    I wish we knew more about the release of the emails. Do you suppose they were on NSA letterhead? With Axelrod's fingerprints?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was exactly what I thought..how did the discovery of emails and texts come about?
      It's funny to listen to the MSM reporters: how could he not know? If he can't keep his office under control, if he isn't aware of things that go on under his watch, how is he fit to be President? Blah blah blah.


      V

      Delete
  6. Karl Denninger also covered this over at his site (market-ticker.org), from whence I stole this new Presidential election slogan:

    " Vote Cthulu 2016.

    When you just can't handle the lesser of two evils any more "


    A_Nonny_Mouse

    ReplyDelete
  7. yeah... no big loss to the GOP... flying flags at half mast for Whitney Houston was pretty much the end of Christie for me.
    Might not exactly be a 'Benghazi moment', but this latest crap is just par for the course.

    - reader #1482

    ReplyDelete
  8. "we have once somnolent journalists suddenly jarred into action asking "penetrating" questions of the sort they never have asked Obama, Holder, Reid, Pelosi, etc. "
    You can almost hear their profound relief as they return to their favorite pastime!

    ReplyDelete
  9. As President, he has used the IRS, the National Labor Relations Board, National Park Service, and the EPA ...

    Don't forget moving the Census Bureau into the White House in order to pad the job numbers.

    Arkie

    ReplyDelete
  10. Watching the GOV, I could only see John Belusi as Jake and his excuses to Carrie Fischer in "The Blues Brothers."
    http://youtu.be/JFvujknrBuE

    ReplyDelete
  11. Called upon to solve the mystery of a missing gold coin in a family who had a normal toddler wont to putting any-and-everything it its mouth, Sherlock Holmes calmly asserted that the coin would show up in the next 24 hours.

    His trusty sidekick asked in wonderment, "I say, Holmes, how can you be so certain?"

    Holmes smiled and said, "It's alimentary, my dear Watson, alimentary."

    *********

    When one "follows the money" (and ideology) of the members of our media it's not too hard to discern in which "main stream" the media is usually found flowing...

    c'est la vie --- ces-la-pool...

    ReplyDelete
  12. After reading the emails from his staff about this, I can see how this scandal has a different quality than everything else.
    This isn't just 'smoking gun' evidence, those emails portray clear ill intent.
    Whereas a lot of scandals can be written off by partisans as 'accidental', 'unprovable', or 'yeah they're politicians, and privately the probably discussed these horrible things they were going to do, but we don't know for certain what they were thinking', in this case the ill intent is much more unambiguous.


    Again, I'd be very disappointed in Christie if he hadn't already shown his extremely poor judgment by ordering flags flown at half staff for Whitney Houston.
    He can claim incompetence in character judgment of his staff here... in the flag scandal, he owned the whole thing.
    So in a way, par for the Christie course.

    ReplyDelete
  13. "I can't decide if we have a mass media of double standards or one with no standards."

    Dip, I suspect that the constant employment of the former necessarily implies that the employer suffers from the latter.


    ReplyDelete
  14. It is amazing seeing how many Republican Office holders turn away from the Conservative ideas that got them in Office as they seek the admiration of the MSM and the acceptance of the Georgetown soiree scene, then get blindsided by those very same admirers when they suddenly go up against a true Progressive/Liberal Candidate.
    Regardless of how many "Gangs of whatever number" McCain joined (that always ended up advancing the Liberal agenda), the MSM was never going to give him a break when he went against Obama/Hillary/Pick-A-Dem. Overnight he goes from being THE Moderating force in the Republican Party to a spiteful, racist, hateful dolt who wants to drink the blood of children.
    It happens every time and the current Party leadership continues to be clueless in the truth that while they are bending over trying to be liked (which they NEVER will be) the other side is only interested in crushing them completely and establishing a defacto one party State where the names may change with time, but the goal and ideology of The State being supreme to The Citizen is absolute.
    Christie is just the latest example. A "Good Republican" with Presidential abilities...Right up to the point where he started polling higher than Hillary (the next anoited candidate of the MSM) last month. Suddenly, what would usually be a page 5 Saturday article about politicians using their Office to poke each other in the eye has become a National Crisis. I'm sure that the next set of polls will have Christie down to single digits and the MSM can check in with hillary to determine the next Republican that needs to be removed from the field.
    Probably Walker or Cruz...always high on the current list...maybe Kasich should he start looking in that direction.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. so true... was really sad to see a good friend of mine go from wanting to have voted for a mccain ticket in 2000 to branding mccain a horrible person when up against obama.
      entirely manufactured anger... but he leapt through the logical conundrums to make it happen...
      it happens everywhere.... christie will be getting 'the treatment' too, regardless of how many hollywood butts he kisses.

      - reader #1482

      Delete
  15. The RINO position..act hurt, drop head, clasp hands in front, adopt the look and actions of someone trying to manage a large gas bubble in front of others. Prostrate oneself before the media judges. Wait for round two of the same act just because it is expected. Rinse, Repeat. Some where, someday, somebody with an R attached to his name is going to say to the liberals/media "enough"! "Screw you"! America is in peril and YOU are the reason.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Unfortunately the Republican leadership is full of self serving cretins.

    leaperman

    ReplyDelete
  17. pmc

    Obama runs a tight ship. With Eric Holder there is no longer any need for states rights, or laws, or the Constitution. The government bureaucrats carry out the fiats.

    And the mass media -- the all important mercenaries for the leftist progressive Demokrat leader and the cause. Without them this would have been much harder.

    And the Republicans -- they eat their own.

    Just us and the cannon fodder now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I must stand...I will stand as if it's on me alone.]

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt8y18YFH70

      Never shall this nation go down if people with integrity fight.

      Hail! Hail our nation! Hail for the heroes who fight despite the terror they live.
      Hail!

      leaperman
      Proud to be an American.
      God bless us and God bless you

      Delete
  18. Well now, vindication of sorts. Recall my "hypothetical" from

    November 23, 2012 at 1:58 AM

    …figuring the Benghazi/Dernaa area was not to ever come to the attention of the US public-at-large. If forced to provide a guess, it'd be AQIM with a few AQAP guys providing the tactical stuff. ...

    Now comes today:

    "Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, which is ideologically aligned with al-Qaida and tied to its affiliates, including AQIM, represents the greatest threat to U.S. interests in Tunisia," the [State] department said."

    http://news.yahoo.com/us-names-militants-involved-benghazi-attack-150239275.html

    Of course the bozos continue to insist, "Not AQ" - but apparently they didn't get the memo from their own CTC detailing how, LIFG (which group's members were transferred into Sa'id Gaddafy's gentle ministrations from Gitmo, at which point they) experienced the always spiritual "jailhouse conversion."

    http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/lifg-revisions-posing-critical-challenge-to-al-qaida

    Arkie

    ReplyDelete
  19. The money-quote from that latter link:

    Fifth, although the fact the revisions were issued from prison have caused "some" [count me among them] to speculate coercion was involved, ...

    I "speculated" about coercion's likelihood especially since McCain (after he stopped being friends with Buddy Muammar) insisted the soon to be extinct fellow deserved what he wound up receiving.

    Fun read here in case anybody's forgot:

    http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/261063/libyas-makeover-andrew-c-mccarthy

    Ark

    ReplyDelete
  20. The mass media has a standard, a single standard. It is a red donkey rampant on a yellow field.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I sense the Diplomad is not exactly enjoying the new year.

    Allow me to try to cheer him, in a small way:

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/vivian-bercovici-named-canada-s-new-ambassador-to-israel-1.2488765

    The best news is at the end of the second paragraph.

    Oh, and the presstitutes-redundant! Smart people don't read newspapers and the dumb people can't. All the news is made on TV these days, mostly on entertainment tonight, thats where 50% of the electorate get their marching orders for who to vote for.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I miss Reagan more and more...
    What he said is even more relevant today.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY

    leaperman

    Diplomad? Did you ever meet Reagan? Any stories?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Perhaps not a large portion of "ordinary citizens" realize a very valuable service has now gone the way of the dodo.

    Those of us who were, however hard we lobbied for it's continuation think a larger portion of "ordinary citizens" should know there once was such a thing - a source providing as close to a non-ideological info source (non-ideological in the sense of not filtered through a media company lens - whatever one's ideological leanings) from whence one could do for oneself, independent analysis.

    That this service has been discontinued during this, the Obama Administration or, as Diplomad so ably characterizes it - The Obama Misadministration is, at least to this reader of Diplomad 2.0, highly suspect.

    http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2014/01/fbis-wnc/

    Arkie

    ReplyDelete
  24. I begin to observe a very interesting phenom: ordinary people are beginning to see that unbridled power in the hands of the govt can be a bad thing. It was one thing when the "dirty tricks" were mostly played on other pols -- a more or less intramural sport -- but when Govt dirty tricks affects non-combatants who expect their govt to leave them alone, things change. Interesting, unexpected things may come from this. Some might even get the idea that the govt is a threat to our liberties. Radical.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I considered doing such on the current post possibly sullying (Diplomad's got a post bidding Sharon proper regards).
    ____________________________

    (Diplomad, Malcolm, David, fellow Readers, shall have free use):

    On my oath I've never seen the term in print nor, have I heard the word uttered. I hereby declare authorship and claim all rights (NYT, WSJ? etc, that includes monies but does not exclude anything other of value) to the following

    ChrispyGate™, Chrispygate™, ChrispyGate©, Chrispygate©

    and any variations thereof derived from as of the above timestamp.

    Arkie, JK

    Gatesgate is fair-game.

    ReplyDelete
  26. (I was composing a post on this past week's goings-on and "Chrispygate™" slammed into what passes for my mind.

    I'd ask fellow Readers - but none necessarily of any of the three blog authors - to, immediately after the 'e' above, enter the alt-code for denoting the trademark. Just press and hold the 'alt' key, tap the numerical keys in this order, 0153 - release the alt key.

    If any of the regulars [provided there's an earlier comment posted] on the three sites notices a proceeding use of the term anywhere else, lemme know - I'd love to sue the NYT. We'll share the spoils.

    Arkie)

    ReplyDelete
  27. It may be petty urban politics but 5 years of a national version of petty urban politics should be enough to convince you that Chrisite needs to be stopped before he gets started.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am no Christie fan but I was struck but how much energy and vehemence the media put into "bridge-gate" compared to how little they put into Fast & Furious, Benghazi, IRS, Obamacare disaster etc.

      Delete