CHRISTIE IS GUILTY AS CHARGED

Although I do not remember who said it on TV, it has stuck in my head as sound advice for politicians: ‘Never do anything crooked that an average person can understand’.  This is where newspaper reporters and bloggers should appear. They should be skilled in explaining what is happening in as brief of a way as possible. We live in a bumper sticker era; if it is more than can be put on a bumper sticker the reader will lose interest. We need more than that if we are to survive as a culture.

My head was swirling when the Gov. Chris Christie scandals were, and still are, expanding at what seems to be an exponential rate. The significance of the Port Authority involvement can be difficult to understand and confused me. When Steve Kornacki said something about that organization being a tool for nefarious activates I was lost. Obviously, the closure of a bridge that fell under their authority somehow had to involve them—simple and easy to understand. However, a hidden fact part explains why the agency did what it did. Christie appoints the head of the Port Authority; that’s his job.  If he makes a mistake and appoints a “bad egg”, it reflects on his judgment but things happen. For Christie, the damning thing that happened was with additional appointments he made to that agency, which clearly showed that the head of that agency was rewarding him or “paying him back” for his appointment. The phrase quid pro quo comes to mine. In other words, it was not a mistake or a case of bad judgment about who he appointed; Christies made the appointment with purpose. He is guilty of that as charged.

Here is what happened. The Port Authority is a huge agency with a mammoth sized budget. Christie rewarded people for their favors or political support with a job. Every one expects that will be the case with his cabinet members and government agencies; hence, reporter can scrutinize the appointee and a make judgment about their qualification for the job they are given.  What is not expected in modern politics is the Tammany hall type operation that Christie created. He appointed 80 people to high paying jobs in the Port Authority with the full knowledge and approval of the head of that agency, who he also appointed: eighty jobs without job description. In case you are too lazy to do the calculation that is about $12 million a year in political payouts in raw salary money. If  you include  employee overhead, there is probably a 20% increase in that figure. If Christie asks for campaign donation from these people and their families, does he get them? If he asks for their political support, does he get it? If he asks to have a bridge shut down to harass a small town Mayor, do you think the bridge will be shut down? The people in New Jersey know that answers because the bumper sticker tells us; “Christie gets things done”. Of course, the bumper sticker tells the truth; it just does not tell us how, which is to complex to bother a busy people to find out.

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