Traffic on the GW Bridge Chris Christie is getting an early dose of the attention one attracts when one runs for president. Welcome to the NFL, as they say. So far, Christie is learning great lessons on this front at the right time, before he formally announces his intent as a candidate. He’s learning:
What to say and how to say it; how to set expectations; how to take decisive action quickly.
So far, so good. As long as nothing incriminating comes out. And that’s where I get a little foggy.
Having worked on staffs of politicians and knowing, I hope, what a “loyal” staffer does and how he or she acts, and also seeing how others handle that responsibility, I find it hard to believe, taking all that into account, that no one on his staff told him, bragged, intimated or covered his ass about shutting down a few lanes of traffic on the most travelled bridge in the word.
If the story as we know it is true, someone “loyal” to the governor ordered the lanes shut down. We saw the emails written in true Tony Soprano style: “Time for some traffic problems”
A loyal staffer would never have taken that action without some signal of approval from the boss. At least in my experience.
If you are the type of “loyal staffer” who would, you likely would be sure you got some credit for doing it. If you are the type of “loyal staffer” who questioned if that was the correct action, you would have covered your ass and found a way to let the boss know what you were doing. Especially under the circumstances: working for a high visibility governor positioned as a front-runner for president; a guy known as tough-talking and straight-shooting; a guy who places so much emphasis on loyalty that he spent most of a two-hour press conference, when he should have been apologizing, talking about loyalty and how he was betrayed. On the other hand, if you truly are a “loyal staffer,” you never would have done it.
So, I’m having trouble accepting that somehow Christie wasn’t aware of what was going on. Don’t get me wrong, I hope I am wrong. I want to believe a guy like Gov. Christie is real – a strong, straight-talking elected official who tells it like it is. I crave such an elected official, as I think most of us do. Unfortunately, we've all been prepped to be skeptical.
What to say and how to say it; how to set expectations; how to take decisive action quickly.
So far, so good. As long as nothing incriminating comes out. And that’s where I get a little foggy.
Having worked on staffs of politicians and knowing, I hope, what a “loyal” staffer does and how he or she acts, and also seeing how others handle that responsibility, I find it hard to believe, taking all that into account, that no one on his staff told him, bragged, intimated or covered his ass about shutting down a few lanes of traffic on the most travelled bridge in the word.
If the story as we know it is true, someone “loyal” to the governor ordered the lanes shut down. We saw the emails written in true Tony Soprano style: “Time for some traffic problems”
A loyal staffer would never have taken that action without some signal of approval from the boss. At least in my experience.
If you are the type of “loyal staffer” who would, you likely would be sure you got some credit for doing it. If you are the type of “loyal staffer” who questioned if that was the correct action, you would have covered your ass and found a way to let the boss know what you were doing. Especially under the circumstances: working for a high visibility governor positioned as a front-runner for president; a guy known as tough-talking and straight-shooting; a guy who places so much emphasis on loyalty that he spent most of a two-hour press conference, when he should have been apologizing, talking about loyalty and how he was betrayed. On the other hand, if you truly are a “loyal staffer,” you never would have done it.
So, I’m having trouble accepting that somehow Christie wasn’t aware of what was going on. Don’t get me wrong, I hope I am wrong. I want to believe a guy like Gov. Christie is real – a strong, straight-talking elected official who tells it like it is. I crave such an elected official, as I think most of us do. Unfortunately, we've all been prepped to be skeptical.
RSS Feed