Christie's July 4th Jersey Debacle

Chris Christie and his family enjoy Island Beach
State Park while the public is shut out

"I understand that that's because the governor has a residence at Island Beach. Others don't. That's the way it goes. Run for governor then you can have the residence." 

That was Republican NJ Governor Chris Christie responding to the wide-spread criticism he received after aerial photographs showed him and his family relaxing on Island Beach State Park over the weekend.

Normally the governor chilling out on the beach wouldn't be a big deal.

But last week Island Beach State Park, like other NJ state park and recreational facilities, the Motor Vehicle Commission, the Department of Health and a host of other state government services were closed to the public for the weekend leading into the July 4th holiday.

A crucial day to the hundreds of small business owners whose livelihood is dependent on the thousands of Independence Day beachgoers who flock to the Jersey shore.

Part of what enraged New Jerseyans about the photo of Christie enjoying Island Beach State Park over the weekend with his family while it was closed to the public stems from the fact that this unprecedented state government shutdown wasn't caused by any actual government crisis.

It was the result of Christie trying to blackmail the normal state budget process over his efforts to bully Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield (a not-for-profit and the largest insurer in the state) into diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from its surplus fund in order to fund opioid abuse and other programs that have become Christie's focus in the final months of his term in office.

Regardless of whether of one's political party, if you're the governor and you want $300 million for a program, you have to go through the normal budget and appropriations process and work with the state assembly to fund it.

Signs Christie had posted that blame
Speaker Prieto for NJ park closings 

You don't circumvent that process by passing a bill that authorizes the state to essentially seize funds from a not-for-profit to pay for initiatives that you want.

But Christie did, and he tried using that as leverage to get him to sign the state budget.

When State Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto refused, the government went into shutdown ahead of the weekend, not only shutting down essential state services, but disrupting the holiday plans of thousands of people.

Christie even had the gall to try and blame Prieto.

In a remarkably pathetic attempt to try and absolve himself of responsibility for his own refusal to sign the state budget into law, Christie actually had color flyers printed up with a photo of Prieto on it that blamed the government shutdown on the state assembly.

But it was the photo of Christie and his family casually enjoying the beach that was closed to NJ tax payers who pay for it that blew up nationally, further tarnishing the image of the man who famously demonstrated a willingness to shutdown access lanes on the NJ side of the George Washington Bridge in order to "get back" at a mayor who refused to endorse him.

Part of what's amazing is that Christie seems almost clinically detached from the optics of what an insensitive asshole he looks like for taking his family to a public beach that he closed to taxpayers.

He even tried to deny that he'd been on the beach sunning himself with his family in front of reporters during a government shutdown, bristling at the suggestion that he'd been hanging out on the beach until the photo of him sitting in a beach chair went national and blew up in mainstream and social media.

Last Friday afternoon I stopped by my local the Franklin Tavern and the consensus of regulars there, both Republican and Democrat alike, was that Christie's government closure was an outrage - take a listen to some of the comments from NJ citizens who called into The Brian Lehrer Show on Friday morning for a segment discussing the impact of Christie's actions.

A banner from a plane flown over the beach in NJ

Uncaring "let them eat cake" hypocrisy like that?

From a despised governor who spent the bulk of his two terms in public office absent from the state focused on his own presidential ambitions before shilling for Donald Trump in the hopes of scoring himself a cushy position in the federal government?

Low rent.

It should give you an idea of why Christie literally has the lowest approval rating (15%) of a sitting governor ever recorded by a Quinnipiac University poll.

Let's be clear, I'm not saying that opioid abuse isn't a major public health crisis that needs to be dealt with on the state and federal level (frankly it's been a major public health issue in urban and rural communities for years, but that's another blog).

But Christie had seven years as governor to work with the state assembly to try and secure budget proper funding for what's become his pet project, during that time he opposed the Affordable Care Act that provided federal subsidies through Medicaid to help pay for opioid abuse treatment.

So his efforts to use the final year of his two years as governor to remake his soiled public image into the "caring opioid abuse czar" reeks of self-serving hypocrisy.

The vast majority of people in New Jersey recognize it little more than a desperate attempt to avoid being branded for life as the "Bridgegate Governor" who backed Donald Trump, failed to bite the bullet and secure tax revenue to pay for the ARC train tunnel project, and accomplished almost nothing of substance.

Christie defending his shutdown to reporters

And that's how he's going to be remembered.

That's his self-created political legacy.

Tom Moran, the politically-plugged in columnist for both the Newark Star Ledger and NJ.com called the needless government closure the 'Seinfeld Shutdown' because it's a government shutdown based on nothing except for Christie's own arrogance.

While the beaches and state parks were finally opened in time for July 4th after Christie finally yielded and signed the $34.7 billion budget late Monday night, the sense of public outrage is still simmering.

As Marianne Tennpenny, a resident of Bayville, New Jersey who's family shelled out $175 for a season pass to Island Beach State Park told NJ.com, the beaches may be open but people from New Jersey aren't going to forget Christie's three-day shutdown that ruined many people's weekend holiday plans.

Tennpenny actually tried to track Christie down on the boardwalk where he's often spotted in the summer to give him a piece of her mind, but he was nowhere to be found.

"I know he didn't want to show his face. This is the biggest blunder since Bridgegate. It's just unbelievable how arrogant he is. He's just plain arrogant. It was inconsiderate and selfish. He's not thinking about the people he represents."

I'm not sure Christie has ever has thought about anyone other than himself as governor.

The beaches and state parks may be open, but his last July 4th as governor was a total debacle.

An Independence Day that's going to leave a bad taste in the mouths of many and a blight on the already tarnished legacy of Governor Chris Christie.

Christie's Populist Smokescreen & My Own MVC Experience

Gov Christie & Stacey Pilato at the South Plainfield MVC

Now some of you reading this may be from outside the New Jersey area so it may have been awhile since Governor Chris Christie has been on your media radar after he bowed out of the 2016 race for the Republican presidential nomination on February 10th.

Since returning to the governorship, he's been focusing his energies on the business of the state of New Jersey, in part to deflect widespread criticism for his endorsement of Donald Trump for president on February 26th.

Now I certainly can't claim to be an expert on "all-things-Christie".

Not like WNYC reporter Matt Katz, whose Christie Tracker podcast is the go-to source for objective analysis of a Governor who's notorious about controlling press access to his events, but I do try to follow Garden State politics.

Last week Christie made local headlines when Stacey Pilato (pictured above), a New Jersey attorney, called into his weekly "Ask the Governor" radio show on NJ 101.5 FM last Wednesday to express frustration over her efforts to get a replacement learner's permit for her son Ike after the teen mistakenly left his his original permit in his jeans and it got ruined in the washing machine.

Pilato, the wife of former Bound Brook Republican Mayor Carey Pilato, was upset because (allegedly) some employees of the NJ Motor Vehicle Commission were making the seemingly routine task a four week bureaucratic nightmare.

Christie answers questions on his weekly radio program

The governor vowed, live on the air, that he would personally help resolve her situation, and he did.

True to his word, the next morning at 11am, Christie accompanied the frustrated mom and her son Ike to the South Plainfield branch of the MVC and of course, the teen quickly got a replacement leaner's permit without a problem.

Now it was certainly considerate of Christie to help these folks straighten this issue out, but I was skeptical.

It struck me as opportunistic.

Especially given that Christie has been under fire by both Republicans and Democrats in recent weeks for an ongoing political conflict with Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D) Seacaucus and other Democratic Assembly members over a controversial Christie-backed proposed state takeover of Atlantic City - which is facing an epic budgetary crisis fueled by a combination of poor city management, lower tax revenues and plunging revenue from AC's rapidly-declining casino industry.

After the disastrous takeover of the city of Flint, Michigan by Republican Governor Rick Snyder and a Republican-led state legislation, Christie's push to solve the budget crisis in Atlantic City by using a state takeover is a questionable move given the nearly unanimous bipartisan support for a solution that would give the embattled New Jersey city two years to draft a more permanent fix with the input of state and local leaders.

Christie has also faced bipartisan push back over his refusal to authorize $3 million in additional emergency funding to the city of Newark to begin intensive testing for high levels of lead found in the pipes of some city schools.

Newark Mayor Baraka testifies in front of the NJ Assembly

City officials including Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who's testified in front of the NJ state Assembly in Trenton about the lead issue in his city's public schools, wanted emergency funding from the state.

Especially given the crisis situation in Flint, Michigan, but Christie kicked the can into the Democratic-majority Assembly, arguing that additional funds needed to be voted on by the Assembly.

Christie has since yielded some ground on both issues, and he's now calling for the NJ state legislature to approve $10 million to test all New Jersey public schools for lead poisoning starting this fall and make the results available to the public - the governor's approval of $10 million seems generous.

But when viewed in light of the fact that investigations by journalists have shown that up to $50 million has been taken from a fund established back in 1978 to protect children from lead poisoning, he still kicked the can on that one to a degree.

Especially considering that his proposal mandates that individual school districts must first pick up the tab for testing their schools, THEN apply to the state to be reimbursed - with lead testing costs projected to reach into the billions in New Jersey, Christie's solution strikes me as textbook political shell-game chicanery.

According to the May newsletter of the NJ chapter of the Sierra Club, two elementary schools in the Hamilton area where I live, Morgan Elementary and Greenwood Elementary, were recently found to have levels of lead in their water sources considered unacceptable by federal standards.

But Christie has always been motivated by what he thinks is best for his own political reputation.

Which, in light of the pressure he's facing in the state on the Atlantic City takeover issue and the lead testing debacle, leads me to see his decision to personally escort the wife of a former Republican Mayor to the MVC to help her get her son a replacement learner's permit as calculated political theater intended to boost his sagging popularity in the state.

Christie is shrewd enough to know that the NJ DMV, as the current MVC used to be known, has been a sore spot with Garden State residents for years who largely viewed it as a clutzy, poorly run bureaucracy typified by agonizingly slow lines and horrible customer service by state employees who's emotions when dealing with customers varied between complete disinterest coupled with contempt, to alarming anger as they seemed to actually seek out ways to make people's experience as miserable as humanly possible.

So the state changed the name of the DMV to the MVC in an attempt to re-brand it as a new model of state efficiency.

Christie's personal MVC intervention on behalf of Mrs. Pilato and her son Ike, and his subsequent  public announcement that all MVC employees will go through additional customer service training, just happened to coincide with my own vehicle registration expiring at the end of April.

Baker's Basin MVC in Lawrenceville, NJ

Between filing my taxes, working on a 5th draft of my graphic novel script and an uptick in people searching for apartments, my April was a meat-grinder of a month.

I put off driving over to my local branch of the MVC, the Baker's Basin branch in Lawrenceville (pictured left), to get my registration renewed in person until the last minute.

Since I was more than a little skeptical about Christie theatrically sweeping into the MVC to help the wife of a former Republican Mayor, I thought I'd dust off my reporter skills (I used to write a local newspaper column and also worked as a TV reporter) and share my personal MVC experience on this blog.

The original dull-looking poorly lit Baker's Basin branch of the DMV where I go was demolished in recent years to coincide with the agency being re-branded as the MVC and replaced with the much nicer facility seen here.

You'll have to forgive my iPhone photo above, the overcast gray skies didn't really make for ideal photography conditions, but you get the picture (no pun intended).

Let me just say that last year I drove over to this MVC facility to transfer the title of a vehicle, get a new registration and get new license plates and I have to tell you that the folks I dealt with handled that trifecta of tax-revenue generating bureaucracy with surprising speed and efficiency.

In fact, I arrived about 20 minutes before closing on a Friday, and they actually let me stay a few minutes after closing while a no-nonsense African-American lady in her 50's and a fast-moving younger white woman in her 30's efficiently shuttled me back and forth between two windows while they got the title changed over to my name, a new registration issued and new plates - all in about 22 minutes.

I was impressed, it was a pretty tricky request by MVC standards and they handled it while being pleasant, patient and with a genuine desire to help me.

So knowing the kinds of comments Stacy Pilato had made to Christie, I was curious to see what my experience would be like when I arrived last Friday about 4pm.

Inside the Baker's Basin MVC

Knowing I was going to share the experience on the blog, I got out of vehicle, took the above picture of the exterior of the building, then started the stopwatch on my phone and walked inside.

It was Friday April 29th and it was pretty busy.

An older security guard in a uniform and a younger, casually dressed college-aged guy were at the small reception desk helping to steer people who came inside in the right direction and get them in the correct line.

If you look at the photo I took to the left, those double doors at the main entrance are right in front of the reception desk.

Now most of those people you see standing on either side of the door were waiting to get new licenses or learner's permits.


It's hard to see (you're not supposed to take photos in there so I had to be a little 007 with my picture taking...) but straight across along the glass wall people were standing waiting on line for new licenses and learner's permits.

There were two rows of benches over there and they were full.

If you're just renewing a registration like I was, it was a lot quicker. The two guys at the reception ask you what you're there to do, then they tap one of two touch-screens on either side of the reception desk and it prints out a small ticket with a letter and a number and you go sit or stand in the appropriate waiting area - registration and tags to the right, licenses and such to the left.

I walked to the right and took a seat where I snapped the photo above, pretty much all the people in front of me were waiting for registration renewals too.

MVC's Natural light & ticket screens 

Large color screens on the walls over the various help windows (which are all numbered) display the ticket number being helped, the next ticket on deck and a voice constantly calls out the next ticket number and tells you exactly which window to go to.

In defense of the afore-mentioned Stacy Pilato, I must say the lines for licenses and permits wasn't just long, the waits were up to two hours at some points. The guys at the reception area explained that to people walking in that the line was so long, they might be waiting two hours.

One young girl came in and was told of the wait for a new license and she loudly complained that she'd also stopped by two days before and was told the same thing - and she turned around and walked out in a huff as she stabbed at her cell phone angrily.

But the vast majority of people were pretty patient.


After waiting a few minutes and getting the rhythm of how quickly numbers actually get called, you could clearly see that the delays were not due to the inefficiency or lack of professionalism of the MVC employees; there was just a ***load of people there waiting to get service.

And the wait wasn't that bad, if you look at the other photo above, you can clearly see the screens on the right above the windows where everyone can see the tickets being served, plus the overhead skylight lets in natural light and it just makes it more pleasant while you're sitting there.

My ticket number was eventually called, I walked over to window number 11, handed a woman wearing glasses my registration card and driver's license, swiped my Visa card for $46.50, she printed out my registration, I signed the receipt and I was walking out of there about 90 seconds later.

I got in my car and stopped the stopwatch on my phone, the whole thing took 25 minutes and 51 seconds - that's not bad considering how busy it was, plus it was Friday.

So I'm not going to judge Stacey Pilato's experience at the South Plainfield MVC branch and maybe she did need the governor to walk her in to get her son Ike a replacement learner's permit, I don't know.

But the requirements for what you need to have with you when you go to the MVC are clearly listed on the Website, my sense was that a lot of people who go in to get driver's licenses or learner's permits simply aren't prepared for how many people are waiting to get the same thing.

Did Mrs. Pilato go to the MVC and decide she just didn't want to wait two hours to get the permit and get frustrated and walk out like the girl in a huff I described above?

Who knows.

Mission Accomplished! Ike Pilato thanks the Gov

Was it easier for Christie to take time out of his day to go to the South Plainfield MVC branch and help Mrs. Pilato get her son a replacement learner's permit than it was for him to let the air out of his political ego and make a deal with the Assembly Speaker and the legislature to authorize state funds to test the drinking water for lead content in the thousands of public schools across the state?

Apparently so.

Helping the wife of a former Republican Mayor go to the MVC then using the publicity to announce new customer service training for all MVC employees strikes me as low-hanging fruit; and how much will all that extra training cost the tax payers of New Jersey anyway?

I certainly don't see Christie raising a stink in the press paying for this new customer service training the way he is over coming up with funds to test the drinking water in public schools for toxic levels of lead.

Regardless the timing seems to have worked out for Christie, Mrs. Pilato and her son Ike - if he took that kind of initiative to solve the bigger problems in the state that affect millions of people, like starting the new Hudson River transit tunnel project, working with the local and state legislature to address the budget crisis in Atlantic City, or testing the drinking water, imagine the kinds of things he could accomplish.

He wouldn't need to bash Marco Rubio, Donald Trump or anyone else to win the Republican nomination for president; he'd be a shoo in.

The Chris Christie Conundrum

Being a resident of New Jersey can be really confusing sometimes.

You got Giants fans in the north and Eagles fans in the south (I'm a Washington fan) and a mostly-absent Cowboys fan-governor like Chris Christie whose insatiable desire to placate his conservative critics seems to come at the price of serving the constituents that he was elected to serve.

Now it doesn't take a seasoned political expert to see that Christie's presidential ambitions for 2016 are pretty much done.

Earlier this afternoon I was watching CNN's Jake Tapper doing a political roundup segment showing the latest results from a new CNN/ORC poll of the leading 10 Republican presidential candidates.

Donald Trump currently leads the field by double digits at 24% (which pretty much tells you all you need to know about the Republican party...) followed by Jeb Bush with 11%, Ben Carson at 9%, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker tied at 8%, Rand Paul at 6%, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and John Kaisch all tied at 5% and Mike Huckabee at 4%.

Christie isn't even in the top ten. His image wasn't even on the fancy interactive digital screen with the candidate's faces and their poll numbers; you know that thing CNN's John King loves to play with?

Worse, Christie's name wasn't even brought up.

No disrespect to Christie, but I don't think you can really serve two masters in the national political arena and expect to succeed on both fronts.

Politically speaking if you're the governor of a state like New Jersey, New York, California, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts or Pennsylvania, it's pretty much a "national" position that can serve as a launchpad to the White House - if you're focused and IF have your political shit together.

Christie seems to have neither at this point.

With an unsolved pension reform mess, stagnant job growth, flat wages, the Bridge Gate scandal still unresolved, truckloads of pissed-off NJ homeowners who're still waiting for federal relief funds for homes damaged by Superstorm Sandy on his plate, Christie has enough to deal with here in the Garden State.

And being out of the state more than 220 days this year isn't going to solve any of those issue any faster,

Say what you want about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, but even she was able to recognize that it wouldn't be fair to her constituents to serve as governor AND give 100% to a national presidential campaign - so she resigned.

It ended up hurting her politically but at least she faced up to it.

Christie doesn't seem able to do that and I'm not sure an unpopular governor with plunging approval numbers in his own economically-stagnant state can really make a case for the Republican nomination; especially with a closet full of Bridge Gate skeletons waiting to tumble out.

Look at the image up at the top of this post, I didn't just pick that image to pick on Christie, that's taken from a July 5th open post by the Monmouth Watchdog on New Jersey's Marlboro-Coltsneck Patch calling on Chris Christie to resign as governor - the opening sentence pretty much sums up what many New Jersey residents think of Christie:

"We face big problems in this state. Our credit rating is a disaster. Our unemployment rate is high. Our economic growth is slow. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our pensions are in crisis. Our schools are underfunded. And now our governor has abandoned the job  to campaign for the job he really wants."

So what does Christie do in the face of his not-even-mentioned-on-CNN low single percentage in the presidential and plummeting popularity in his own state? Wait for it...wait for it.....

Anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist has Christie on board

Last Tuesday August 11th he announces he's signing fringe anti-tax anti-government zealot Grover Norquist's diabolically stupid "Tax Payer Protection Pledge" to never raise taxes if elected president!

What happened to Christie? Did someone force-feed him the Kool-Aid?

Have you seen the other Republican governors who've followed Norquist into the abyss of fiscal reason and signed onto the TPP? 

How about Kansas Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana?

Both of these ideological bubble-heads have driven their respective state's tax revenue-starved economies to the brink of insolvency, now Christie thinks that's a good idea for a presidential candidate?

Grover Norquist certainly does, as an August 12th article on NJ.com quoted him as saying after Christie signed the TPP:  

"By signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge to the American people, Governor Christie continues his commitment to protect American taxpayers," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans For Tax Reform. "Governor Christie understands that government should be reformed so that it takes and spends less of the taxpayer's money," he said. "(He) will oppose tax increases that paper over and continue failures of the past."

Now I truly wish I could've been a fly on the wall at the meeting that took place this morning at NJ Senator Corey Booker's office in Newark as the Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, NJ Senator Robert Menendez and Governor Christie sat down to hammer out a way to get a new Hudson River rail tunnel project off the ground. (New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was a no-show)

If you want a pretty good recap on this sudden about face (or should we say save face...) for Governor Christie, check out this segment from this morning's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC with NJ Spotlight reporter Meir Linde and Jessica Gould of WNYC.

According to a New York Times recap of the meeting by Emma Fitzsimmons, the group claimed it was a productive meeting and said in a joint statement:

“The State of New Jersey supports the Gateway Project and is committed to developing a framework with the federal government to begin it,” the statement said. “We all recognize that the only way forward is equitable distribution of funding responsibility and the active participation of all parties.”

By "active participation of all parties" I'm guessing that's a nice way of saying "Andrew Cuomo better get his ass to the next meeting" but the operative phrase there is "equitable distribution of funding responsibility".

That means New Jersey has to kick in it's fair share to this project and despite Grover Norquist's meaningless, non-specific anti-tax rhetoric, this tunnel project IS in the interest of ALL tax payers; so even though we already pay some of the highest taxes in American, folks in New Jersey are going to have to pony up to get this thing built.

I'm willing to do that, I don't like the idea of paying more taxes but the tunnel is necessary.


As I blogged about back on July 26th, the federal government has already committed funds to the project, we know what's going to happen if the project isn't started ASAP and the current North River Tunnels aren't going to just stop deteriorating anytime soon.

The only question seems to be if Governor Christie can put the needs of millions of transit riders and the future of effective mass transit along the northeastern rail corridor ahead of his dwindling presidential ambitions. Which one will he attach his name and legacy to?

Therein lies the conundrum.

  

Chris Christie's GW Bridge-Gate Scandal Heats Up

East-bound traffic on the George Washington Bridge

Want a picture of the culture of vindictive low-ball New Jersey state politics at its worst?

Look no further than the growing GW Bridge-Gate scandal that's already starting to tarnish some of the polish off NJ governor Chris Christie's presidential ambitions.

The saga began back in early September two months before the November 5th New Jersey Gubernatorial elections when Mark Sokolich, the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, refused to endorse Republican Christie for governor.

According to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll taken between September 3rd and September 9th, Christie's lead over his challenger, former NJ state senate majority leader Barbara Buono, had shrunk to 55% to 35% (with 8% undecided and 1% undeclared) even though he went on to win the election in a landslide.

In response to the snuff by the Fort Lee mayor, David Wildstein the director of interstate capital projects for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, ordered engineers to close some of the access lanes to the George Washington Bridge between September 9th and the 13th with NO prior notice to motorists, state officials and even local police and EMT personnel in Fort Lee; according to the Bergen Record he even told a bridge worker NOT to say anything.

Not only was Wildstein a high school classmate of Christie's, he was appointed to his $150,000 a year job by Christie as well and the lane closures led to massive traffic delays that garnered national media attention when they clogged the city of Fort Lee for days.

For those not familiar with the greater NYC area, a quick traffic lesson. The city of Fort Lee sits on the eastern edge of New Jersey just across the Hudson River from the west side of New York City. The western side of the GW Bridge (THE busiest bridge in the WORLD) is in Fort Lee and it connects New Jersey to upper Manhattan.
 
If you look at the photo above, the crowded lanes on the right are the east-bound lanes of the upper deck of the GW heading into Manhattan. Those drivers are trying to get to Route 9A, which takes traffic south along the Hudson Parkway down to the West Side Highway of Manhattan to go into New York City. Or, they may be trying to go north on 9A to get up to the Bronx, Yankee Stadium or Yonkers.

Or they're trying to get to I-87 or I-95 north which takes you up to New England, or Westchester, NY - or they may be trying to go further east over Manhattan to get to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (the BQE) to get to Brooklyn or Queens; or get to the Long Island Expressway (the LIE) to get out to Long Island or the Hamptons.

On a nice Friday afternoon in the summer it can take you HOURS to get from the NJ Turnpike (I-95 north) through Fort Lee to merge into the lanes to then get into that traffic pictured above. It IS the busiest vehicular bridge crossing on the planet.

My point is not a traffic lecture, it's to illustrate the scope of the arrogance and petty vindictiveness of David Wildstein and possibly Bill Baroni too; another Christie appointee who is a top executive of the Port Authority of NY and NJ - the sprawling public-private agency that oversees the tunnels, bridges, rail roads and ports that connect NY and NJ.

To punish the mayor of Fort Lee, Wildstein intentionally shut off access lanes for all that traffic to merge onto the GW. When the public started demanding answers, Baroni claimed the lane closures were for a "traffic study". But no such study existed and what's now becoming clear is that top Christie appointees snarled traffic for hundreds of thousands of motorists for days so they could make a political point.     

Using a vast piece of vital infrastructure like that for such a petty reason has already led Wildstein to announce his resignation last week in an effort to try and deflect heat from Christie. Hearings on the matter held by the NJ State Legislature began on Monday and top officials including the executive director of the Port Authority Patrick Foye testified.

If you're at all interested in national politics, there was an excellent discussion/summary of Bridge-Gate this morning on the Brian Lehrer Show with reporter Sarah Gonzalez, who's been all over this story from the start and gave a concise and eye-opening overview of some of the testimony from the hearings. You can listen to it online.

Shawn Boburg from The Record wrote an excellent piece today which is a must-read if you want more sordid details from this growing scandal.

Up to now Christie has tried to brush this off and the Port Authority Chairman David Samson has been silent on the issue as well; but nor for long. This is the kind of thing which can nullify someone's presidential ambitions and the Democratic party is already bringing the national spotlight onto this issue.

Part of Christie's appeal as a GOP presidential candidate has been his no-nonsense approach and often brusque manner, but more and more it's looking like that's the very thing that led to this debacle. Christie can't escape that fact that he appointed Bill Baroni to the Port Authority - and Baroni appointed Wildstein.

If the result of the ongoing hearings by the Transportation Committee of the NJ State Legislature and an upcoming internal investigation by the Port Authority reveal that Christie or anyone associated with the governor's office ordered the lane closures as retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee; then Christie's presidential ambitions may be short lived indeed.

A no-nonsense politician may have appeal as a possible presidential candidate. But a politician who will engage in the petty kind of political nonsense that leads to motorists from the largest media market in the world on the busiest bridge in the world to be inconvenienced and delayed for days because of a personal grudge?

The George Washington Bridge is an awfully big weight to carry around with you. That's the kind of scarlet letter you just can't carry into the national media spotlight of the 2016 presidential race.