jsteele wrote:http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie_kelly_bridge_lane_closures_emails.html
"Private messages between Governor’s Christie’s deputy chief of staff and two of his top executives at the Port Authority reveal a vindictive effort to create 'traffic problems in Fort Lee' by shutting lanes to the George Washington Bridge and apparent pleasure at the resulting gridlock."
...
"In one exchange of text messages on the second day of the lane closures, Wildstein alludes to messages the Fort Lee mayor had left complaining that school buses were having trouble getting through the traffic.
"Is it wrong that I’m smiling," the recipient of the text message responded to Wildstein. The person’s identity is not clear because the documents are partially redacted for unknown reasons.
"No," Wildstein wrote in response.
"I feel badly about the kids," the person replied to Wildstein. "I guess."
"They are the children of Buono voters," Wildstein wrote, making a reference to Barbara Buono, the Democratic candidate for governor, who lost to Christie in a landslide in November.
So, Chris Christie's deputy chief of staff created a 4-day traffic nightmare for an entire town because the mayor wouldn't endorse Christie and even took pleasure in keeping kids trapped on school busses. I'm sure the conservatives here will be outraged by this misuse of government power.
I may be the most conservative poster here, Mr. Steele, and I think this is totally indefensible and Christie should pay a huge political price for it. Intentionally causing traffic is per se outrageous. I am a little surprised, however, that so many here are shocked, shocked that this type of payback occurs in New Jersey of all places. My guess is that this type of thing happens all the time by politicians of all stripes. That's the kind of thing that politicians do, although this is more graceless and less justifiable than run of the mill payback. Still, he was bad, he was caught, he should pay the price. Certainly this substantially hurts his presidential ambitions. Can't say I am sad to see that, myself.
At least it's not a crime (hi, Mr. Spitzer, who is somehow being rehabiliated -- I hope you share my outrage at that, too, Mr. Steele.)