Imagining President Christie
Source: New York Times
By Gail Collins
Let us count the ways that this week’s traffic-jam scandal is actually good for Chris Christie’s presidential prospects.
First of all, he proved that he could definitely handle an international crisis that required apologizing when the United States did something really stupid. Like — let’s see. What if the secretary of commerce, in a fit of pique over a Chinese official’s refusal to endorse American seafood products, sent a flotilla of cargo planes to dump tons of surplus mackerel on a Beijing highway? President Christie would be terrific! He could apologize profusely while making it clear that his administration actually had nothing to do with the incident whatsoever and, in fact, was itself a pathetic victim of betrayal by a double agent for the fish industry.
... Christie expressed confidence that the voters would conclude: “Mistakes were made; the governor had nothing to do with that, but he’s taking responsibility for it.” Here we have an echo of Harry Truman’s announcement that “the buck stops here.” However, Christie took the more modern approach, which is to make it clear that while you’re responsible, you are totally not at fault. The buck that stopped at Christie’s desk was not his buck, just an errant piece of currency that wound up in the office because of treacherous fools over whom he had no actual control whatsoever.
... But then we have had presidents who were less inquisitive than a sidewalk. Look at George W. Bush. And he got elected twice.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/opinion/imagining-president-christie.html
