Sunday War Of Words Over ‘Bridgegate’
Now that the September traffic jam mess on the George Washington Bridge back in September has morphed from a “traffic study” into a full-blown scandal, the Sunday morning political talk shows have taken to “Bridgegate’ like Rob Ford to crack.
On ABC’s This Week, Rudy Giuliani made excuses for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose staff is neck-deep in the Bridgegate brown sauce and who has been channeling Hogan’s Heroes’ Sergeant Schultz with his “I know nothing” claims:
“He was in campaign mode at the time. During campaign mode, you miss a lot of things. You’re not paying as much attention. We see that with Benghazi. … The reality is you miss a lot of things when you’re running a government as complicated as New Jersey, New York, or the United States. It’s happened to the present president at least three or four times, where he said, ‘I didn’t know,’ and the press asked, ‘Gosh, how could he not have known?'”
Precisely – for example, there was Rudy’s insistence that New York’s emergency bunker be located at the World Trade Center. How could America’s Mayor® have had any idea that it would be the most obvious target for mass casualty terrorism?
The always-entertaining Karl Rove appeared on FOX News Sunday, and tried to deflect attention by invoking two hoax “scandals”:
“The amount of attention paid to Chris Christie makes the coverage of Benghazi at the same time and the coverage of the IRS pale in comparison. … You’ll notice we haven’t been hearing a lot from the Clinton camp about this. Contrast this with President Clinton and Secretary Clinton’s handling of Benghazi. So I think it will be hard for Democrats to turn this into an issue.”
Rove also tried to spin away Christie’s Wednesday news conference as something that would appeal to the Tea Party:
“I think his handling of this, being straightforward, taking action — saying, ‘I’m responsible’ — firing the people probably gives him some street cred with some tea party Republicans, who say that’s what we want in a leader, somebody who steps up and takes responsibility.”
Unless people start calling the scandal “Bridgeghazi,” Karl. That’ll adequately confuse the Teawinger lizard brain.
Meanwhile, New Jersey assemblyman John Wisniewski, who chairs the committee looking into Bridgegate, once again raised the specter of impeachment for the New Jersey governor:
“This senior aide who was with him that day, who sent the order, never once communicated with him? It’s unbelievable. … I don’t think it’s possible for all these people to be involved and know, and the governor to have absolutely no communication.”
