A scandal for political junkies to love?
by digby
So far, nobody really gives much of a damn about Chris Christie and his bridge:
The only significance seems to be that the veil has lifted from a few Democrats' eyes, which is valuable. His bipartisan cred was his greatest asset there and he seems to have shown his true partisan colors with this thing.
But overall, nobody gives a damn. And really, that's not surprising is it? It's over two years away from the presidential election and it's really just an obscure local story.
The key to its importance is that the press loves it and they will flog it relentlessly because ... well, just because. In many ways this is the mirror image of the Whitewater scandal --- an ambitious politician who dominates the political scene in a state with a lot of colorful political characters, a whiff of corruption and a story that unpeels like an onion. The difference here is that the press doesn't see New Jersey as an exotic trip to an undiscovered continent and so are less likely to be led around by a bunch of small bore con artists. And this scandal may uncover real crimes instead of small state wheeling and dealing that leads nowhere except the destruction of ancillary lives and careers caught in the maw.
The point is that this has many of the hallmarks of a certain kind of obsessive political scandal which the public observes with mild interest but ultimately means little when it comes to the larger national ambitions of the central character. I guess we'll have to see. I'm certainly hopeful that this will derail Christie's plans. His behavior in this and other situations reveals a deeply disturbing authoritarian streak that shouldn't get anywhere near the White House. But I wouldn't count on it.
.
