Bloodthirsty Liberal

Chris Christie visits Israel, hilarity ensues

Why can’t Christie be the Republican nominee?

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, a man mentioned as a possible Republican vice-presidential candidate, met Monday with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and said it was only natural Israel would be his first foreign destination as governor.

“This is my first visit abroad as governor and there was never any question of where we would come first, so I’m glad we did,” Christie said before the meeting.

He was elected governor in November 2009.

Netanyahu welcomed Christie with a line likely to become fodder for US late night comedians, saying, “You know, there are so many similarities between New Jersey and Israel.”

“We’re roughly the same size,” Netanyahu said. “We’re roughly the same population. I know your voters have better neighbors. Other than that, there are several similarities and I look forward to discussing how we can increase the cooperation.”

Soon after Netanyahu made his comment, prominent US political journalist and blogger Ben Smith tweeted: “Other things New Jersey and Israel have in common: Beaches, obsessive politeness.”

- Aggie

Many have pointed out that he’s not as conservative as we might believe—but boy can he put things well!

New Jersey governor Chris Christie, speaking to an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) group in New York, emphasized his commitment to Israel, the Weekly Standard reported.

“America should stand by its friends and its democratic allies, even, and sometimes especially, when it’s unpopular to do so,” Christie said. “And you know I know, that it may not be fashionable in some of the chancelleries, the foreign ministries, and salons around the world to talk about why America stands with Israel – but that’s no excuse not to be saying, and saying it loudly.”

Christie went on to quote President Franklin Roosevelt, “Please judge me by the enemies I have made.” The governor affirmed, “In that same spirit, I would like to say to all of you tonight: I admire Israel for the enemies it has made.”

Christie addressed the issue of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons by stressing that both “Americans and Israelis believe – we know deep in our bones – that if the Islamic Republic of Iran acquired a nuclear weapons capability, it will be an existential threat to Israel, to America, and to world civilization itself.”

He continued by stressing, “stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability must be a top priority of the United States of America. Any president, Republican or Democrat, who allows such a thing to occur on his watch, would be acting in a way that is profoundly against the national security interests of the United States and the security interests of our friends in Israel.”

“It’s only by speaking the truth boldly, or by speaking the truth to power that we will prevent this from happening,” Chrisite continued. “It is only by decisive actions by leaders who truly understand that a threat to Israel is a threat to America. A threat to the Israeli way of life is a threat to the American way of life. Not only for here in America, but for all the nations that emulate our democracy or are trying to emulate our democracy around the world.”

I admire Israel for the enemies it has made.

Bing-go!

He could have misplaced all the money in the state, too.

But he is much thinner than Chris Christie. So the Washington Post regrets your vote for Christie, because, as we all know, fat people can’t be good managers.

Former MF Global chief Jon Corzine apologized to customers, employees and investors who have suffered because of the brokerage firm’s collapse, but said he does not know where missing customer money is.

“Their plight weighs on my mind every day — every hour,” Corzine, a former U.S. senator, said in 21 pages of remarks prepared for delivery on Thursday before the House Agriculture Committee.

“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” he said.

Corzine’s contrite but defensive remarks are his first since MF Global’s October 31 bankruptcy and his resignation days later. Revelations of massive bets on European sovereign debt caused markets to lose confidence in the firm.

Take it from me, folks, never trust a Republican, always vote for the Democrat. Corzine’s face should be your screen saver.

PS – the article never mentions Corzine’s political affiliation. That would be a great big D, for Democrat.

- Aggie

Be vewy, vewy quiet. James O’Keefe, he who cwacked ACOWN, is hunting jouwnalists. Heh-heh-heh-heh. (Via Five Feet of Fuwy)

Our latest video focuses on another Pulitzer Prize winner and professor at Columbia Journalism School, Amy Ellis Nutt.

A writer for New Jersey’s Star-Ledger for the past twelve years, Amy Nutt was easily able to agree with the importance of re-electing President Obama and was quick to characterize New Jersey governor Chris Christie as a an “[expletive], he’s a bully and he’s a liar.”

Nutt spoke with one of our undercover journalists ironically at an event titled, “Hiding in Plain Sight.”

She called him an a**hole if you’re wondering. While she didn’t bring up Obama, the undercover op did and she merely agreed, she did say how lucky it was Christie wasn’t running. While he’s an a-hole, she argued, he’s an articulate a-hole who impresses people. Imagine America ever electing an articulate a-hole. What is she thinking? He’d have to be clean, too.

You can watch the video here, but I won’t embed it because it’s too boring and too Michael Moore for my liking. Showing up unannounced in lobbies and asking to meet busy people when you don’t have an appointment was funny maybe once, in Roger and Me, 22 years ago. Now it’s threadbare and tiresome. (Pauline Kael, to her eternal credit, was unimpressed even at the time.) But the money shot of La Nutt’s comments is priceless.

But I don’t need undercover journalists to tell me the media worked for Obama’s election in ’08 and reelection in ’12—when they are shameless about saying it in public:

So, Chris Christie is endorsing Romney:

Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey will endorse Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a Tuesday afternoon event at the Marriott Courtyard in Lebanon, New Hampshire, multiple sources confirmed to CNN.

Christie passed on his own run for the White House last week and suggested he might endorse a candidate in the 2012 race.

Rush and Ed Morrissey have opined that Romney doesn’t want this thing to get away from him, so he pushed for this now. Some may be disappointed in Christie’s choice, but, save for his silhouette, he and Romney share a cut of jib.

Look, I hope Herman Cain gets his chance. I’m listening to Bill O’Reilly on local radio at this very moment saying Cain is a neophyte, a poor choice for the office. But Cain has an unshakable foundation of beliefs, and Romney, like him or loathe him, doesn’t. I’ll vote for him without question in the general election, but in the primary, I want my first choice. If it can’t be Sarah, it’ll be Herman.

Political analyst, Jay Cost, says that Christie is a perfect fit for voters this year.

I’d take a fat man over an antisemite any day of the week. I think Chris Christie is kinda cute.

Despite continued claims that he’s not running for the White House, credible news outlets continue to report that Chris Christie is still considering running for president. But should he run?

Ultimately, a presidential bid is an intimate and personal choice. After all, Christie would have to commit the next ten years to living in the presidential bubble, and his life would forever be altered. Some people just can’t stomach that. But if Christie can, and if he does indeed have presidential ambitions, he should run now.

In fact, Christie should think carefully about the career of the last president from New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson. The political trajectories of Christie in 2009-2011 and Wilson in 1910-1911 are eerily similar. Christie, like Wilson before him, faces a very strange set of political circumstances that suggests now is the best, if not the only, time to go for it.

I count three notable parallels between Christie and Wilson, all of which point very strongly in the direction of a presidential bid.

He makes good points – go to the link. In all honesty, personally I would never want to run for President or be related to a President, because it is a nutty life. But if he cares about the future of America enough to make that sacrifice, then I hope he’ll run.

Off-topic: Have you heard the one about the N-word on the rock of the place that Rick Perry’s father leased? How is that worse than sitting in Reverend Wright’s church for twenty years and listening to hate speech from the pulpit? Why should anyone get bent out of shape about this?

- Aggie

The opera ain’t over till the fat man sings.

Mi-mi-miMImimi-mi:

With the party’s frontrunner sagging, Chris Christie is reconsidering pleas from Republican elites and donors to run for president in 2012, two Republican sources told POLITICO.

The New Jersey governor has indicated he is listening to big-money backers and Republican influence-makers, and will let them know in roughly a week whether he has moved off his threat-of-suicide vow to stay on the sidelines of a presidential race that remains amorphous heading into the fall, the two sources said.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s candidacy has failed to clear a basic bar with elites and some donors, and his shoddy debate performance in Orlando has only highlighted the window for someone who Republicans searching for a Mitt Romney alternative can rally around.

I’ve learned that in the punditry business you have to repeat yourself often to be heard and remembered. I’ve said before (and say again) Romney is everybody’s third choice—and I’m probably being charitable. I will vote for him if I have to—without a second thought in November 2012— but I personally would rather not have to. Give me Palin, Christie, Rubio et al first.

But it’s most important to defeat Obama. I don’t much care which hairdo we elect, as long as it’s Republican. The alternative is too horrifying to consider.

PS: I also wrote last week that it would be Christie and Clinton in ’12. It’s beginning to look possible, isn’t it?

PPS: If I acknowledge that Chris Christie is fat—Chris Farley fat, John Candy fat—do I have permission to say that Hillary Clinton is looking terrible these days? Almost Helen Thomas terrible?

He is wonderful.

- Aggie

While walking the Bloodthirsty Puppy this afternoon, it came to me: the 2012 presidential election will be between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie. Long shot, probably won’t happen, but I will elaborate over time. Just remember where you heard it.

UPDATE:
These rumors of Obama dropping out or being pulled don’t just come out of the ether; they are planted. As Rush noted yesterday, when Mark Penn publicly opines on the issue, it’s the Clintons’ handiwork (he ran Hillary’s campaign); when James Carville tells Obama to panic (implying that he’s losing it), it’s the Clintons’ handiwork; when Larry Summers is quoted in a book as saying he and Peter Orszag are “home alone”, and that Bill Clinton would never have let things get to this state, that’s… well, you get the picture.

I’m not kidding. I thought Bill Clinton had been too quiet lately. But he’s talking plenty, just in whispers in people’s ears. I wonder if this lies behind Obama’s class warfare approach in recent days. If Hillary and the party establishment want to muscle him aside, they’re going to have to take on his base. It’s as if he’s saying, “now how tough do you feel?”

Just musing.

The Christie idea comes from the Sunday Fox news show in which Paul Gigot and William Kristol suggest that the Republican Party isn’t satisfied yet. There are articulate speakers, and there are conservatives—but not in the same body. Say what you will about Christie, his body can hold a lot.

Reader Jeanette tried to comment on Aggie’s Pawlenty post, but was denied. As Aggie just wrote in another comment, Internet Happens. Jeanette did what we ask any of you to do if that happens, send it in an email, and we’ll post it for you under your name. Since the original post is a few days old and Jeanette’s point is very worth considering, I’m promoting it:

Apropos Chris Christie: in spite of his popularity with mainstream conservatives the man has an Achilles Heel that is cause for worry.

From Middle East Specialist, Daniel Pipes: “He came under criticism from fellow conservatives for nominating Sohail Mohammed, an Islamist who aspires to apply Islamic law, the Shari’a, as a state superior court judge; for an outline of these concerns, see the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “Gov. Christie’s Strange Relationship with Radical Islam.”

In response, Christie delivered a tirade on July 26, 2011, on the topic of Shari’a: ‘Sharia law has nothing to do with this [i.e., the appointment of Sohail Mohammed] at all. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. … So, this Sharia law business is crap. It’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background.’”

Read the whole article at http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/08/why-chris-christie-will-never-be-president, where numerous links are also available.

Chris Christie channels Archie Bunker and tells some dingbat to stifle, and a nation sings hosannah!

During the show one New Jersey voter (I can’t tell by the clip whether they were off-site or whether the clip was recorded) asked Christie what gave him the right to cut funding to public school when he had opted to send his kids to private school.

Here is Christie’s response:

It’s none of your business. I don’t ask you where you send your kids to school. I pay $38,000 in taxes for public schools that we don’t utilize. We believe, we have decided as parents we believe a religious education should be part of our children’s education. Third, I, as governor, am responsible for every child in this state, not just my own. The decisions I make are to improve the educational opportunities. With all due respect, it’s none of your business.

That’s not every word, but most of them. The insinuation that he doesn’t care about kids as long as his are taken care of deserves this kind of response. Absolutely. If the caller had wanted to ask about school funding and performance (most definitely not the same thing), she should have. Obnoxious, offensive questions deserve obnoxious, put-you-in-your-place answers.

The Left has been coddled for far too long, and all we’ve earned for our forbearance is Hitler comparisons. Fine. We’re done. Call stupid stupid, and then tell them to kiss your a**. You’ve wasted all our money, but you won’t waste any more of our time.