I couldn't watch, because I was at the dentist this morning, but I was following closely on Twitter. There were so many holes in Christie's version of events, it resembles a block of Swiss cheese!
"I am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team," Christie said. "I am who I am, but I am not a bully."
Christie said he has dismissed his deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly.
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman - whose job Christie held before he was elected governor - has opened a probe into the lane closures, his spokeswoman said.
"The Port Authority Office of Inspector General has referred the matter to us, and our office is reviewing it to determine whether a federal law was implicated," Rebekah Carmichael said in a statement.
So now we see whether Christie has as much sway with the administration as the teabaggers seem to think. I do know the feds don't like to go into a case unless they have good odds of winning.
My dentist asked me what I was laughing at as I read Twitter. "Chris Christie," I said.
"That's really awful, isn't it? Do you think he knew?" he said.
"Let me put it this way. What are the odds of you walking into the office and finding that one of your hygienists decided to pull someone's teeth? Because that's how likely it is that a staffer did this without him knowing," I said.
There are several moving parts to this narrative. One is, as I just mentioned, it is pretty much unheard of that a senior staffer would do such a thing without direct orders from a higher-up to do so. That's not how political operatives work -- they do nothing that will affect their candidate without permission. Did those orders come from Christie himself? Don't be silly, that's what campaign managers are for: plausible deniability!
Did Christie bemoan "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome mayor?" to his campaign manager. Very, very likely. Did the campaign manager understand what Christie was asking? Of course. This is politics, after all. Dirty tricks are a given.
It was understood that Bill Stepien would fall on his sword, and that Bridget Kelly would get shitcanned. A public offering to the press gods requires ritual sacrifice.
And that's the other part in this play: The media. Not the New Jersey media, because they've done a bang-up job, dogging this story for the past four month. But as I followed along on Twitter, it was clear that the national reporters either don't know how to ask pertinent questions -- or don't want to. Perhaps we'll have to assist them.
In other news, the NJ state committee hearing where Christie pal and former Port Authority executive David Wildstein appeared? He was just held in contempt for refusing to answer questions --even though he was immunized.
This story's not going away anytime soon.
