As my subscribers know, I don’t do politics.
Brain-dead tribalists flinging fecal matter at each other? Yeah, no thanks. As mankind’s greatest mind observed, “Whoever thinks much is not suitable as a party member: he soon thinks himself right out of the party.”
But every so often, I break my rule, and write about politics. It’s certainly a way to grab more eyeballs than writing about policy. (You’ve got to be a moron to focus on that stuff. Bor-ing!)
Back in 2016, I reviewed a biography of Chris Christie. Frankly, until a few days ago, I didn’t know that the roly-poly neocon was running for president. But son of a gun — he is! Thought the column would make for an amusing Throwback Wednesday.
Enjoy!
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No you can’t, I’m a god! I’m a god! You can’t kill me!
— Caligula (John Hurt), I, Claudius
Comparing Chris Christie to a deranged, megalomaniacal Roman emperor isn’t entirely fair. But Caligula’s fictional dying screech comes to mind when one ponders the New Jersey governor’s spectacular tumble from the pinnacle of Republican/right politics.
In American Governor: Chris Christie’s Bridge to Redemption (Threshold Editions; 452 pages; $28.00), WNYC reporter Matt Katz chronicles, in sometimes interminable detail, a man who was born to be a pol. Christopher James Christie entered the world as the first child of a middle-class, German-Irish-Italian family. The household was raucous — mom and dad argued, a lot. Smart, well-behaved, and a natural leader, the kid looked to have a bright future.
In second grade, Christie told a classmate’s mother, “some day I’m going to be president.” (His uncle observed: “Chris wanted to be a politicians when he was a baby.”) In junior high, he volunteered for the liberal GOPer Tom Kean, Sr. Rejected by Georgetown, he earned a political-science degree from the University of Delaware. A law degree from Seton Hall University completed his training for the world of professional politics.
Christie’s early runs for office yielded dismal results. He sought love from voters at the county and state level, failing in three of four attempts. Defamation suits were filed by, and against him. (As Katz notes, “four elections in four years … triggered four court cases.”)
With not much hope of a career in elective office, it was time to become a real lawyer. Christie joined a small firm, Dughi & Hewit, “defending doctors in malpractice cases and handling investment and securities,” with his wife and brother, “both Wall Street traders,” referring clients. Staying active in Republican politics, he joined a junket of Jersey boys in a pilgrimage to visit Texas’s presidential-wannabe governor in January 1999. He raised big bucks for George W. Bush, and even earned a nickname (“Big Boy”), the ultimate honor for Dubya insiders.
Christie’s reward came in the fall of 2001, when the White House named him U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. He had “never worked in criminal law or in a federal courtroom,” and had “never cross-examined a witness or worked as an assistant prosecutor.” No matter. The gig supplied ample media attention, through the prosecution of the Garden State’s rampant political corruption and indictments, however dubious, in the “War on Terror.”
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