Slashdot Mirror
How Chris Christie Could Use the NSA Playbook
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Conor Friedersdorf has written a tongue-in-cheek article in The Atlantic advising New Jersey Governor Chris Christie how he can use the NSA playbook to successfully defend himself of the charges that a senior member of his staff was involved in shutting down George Washington Bridge traffic, a stunt meant to punish the mayor of an affected town for opposing his reelection. Christie's NSA-inspired explanation would include the following points: There are almost 9 million people in New Jersey, and only one was targeted for retribution, an impressively tiny error rate lower than .001 percent; The bridge closure was vital to national security because [redacted]; Since the George Washington Bridge is a potential terrorist target, everything that may or may not have happened near it is a state secret; Going after a political rival is wrong but it's important to put this event in context; Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was the only target of non-compliant behavior. No other Fort Lee resident was ever targeted for retribution, and any delays that any Fort Lee resident experienced were totally inadvertent and incidental; Finally a panel will be formed to figure out how to restore the public's faith in Chris Christie. "To some readers, these talking points may seem absurd or deliberately misleading," concludes Friedersdorf, "but there isn't any denying that so far they're working okay for the NSA.""
This should be posted on a political forum. Maybe slashdot could create a second site for stories like this.
...use the president's instead.
Call the lane closures a "fake controversy."
Refuse to let your aides testify, and when they're forced to, have them lie and/or plead the fifth.
Bury any inconvenient evidence under executive privilege.
Christie already used Obama's first and most common strategy: claiming ignorance. His only mistakes are not have an adoring press that is willing to unquestioningly parrot his talking points as the truth, and he doesn't control the federal DOJ and have the power to make it completely look the other way.
There's no honest person who can be outraged at Christie's politically motivated law breaking, and content with the last 5 years of the same, time and again, from the president. In a just America, these two men would share a jail cell.
It is really telling that the ATF gave over 2500 guns to Mexican drug cartels, and no one from the ATF, DOJ, or Obama Administration is sitting in jail.
It is really telling that the IRS targeted political opponents during an election year, and no one from the IRS, DOT, or Obama Administration is sitting in jail.
It is really telling that Obama campaign donors at Solyndra got $500,000,000 of tax payer money, promptly went bankrupt, and no one from the DOE is sitting in jail.
It is really telling that the Fed prints $75,000,000,000 a month, totaling over $4,000,000,000,000 in the last 5 years, and no one from the fed is sitting in jail.
It is really telling that the president himself breaks the PPACA on a daily basis by announcing parts he will be temporarily or permanently not enforcing, and he's not sitting in jail.
The level of law breaking that goes on in the government today is so great that the telling thing is not that a governor illegally closed a bridge as political retribution against a rival. The telling thing will be when we actually put a government official in a jail cell for breaking the law. At best, people who have been responsible for crimes on behalf of the government get fired. Sometimes they're just reassigned or have to move offices. More often, nothing at all happens.
1. Fast and Furious was made up. The entire thing was based on one right wing ATF source, who was discovered to be lying. It has been debunked so often that even the actual GOP doesn't mention it, only ultra-far right idiots in the Tea Party talk about it nowadays.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/20/irs-scandal-democratic-acorn_n_3785717.html
That link is to a completely unrelated story about the IRS. I was hoping you had some proof, because that was the first time I've heard that Fast and Furious was all bullshit. So I searched the same website for more info and didn't find anything to support your claim. What I did find was an article from july 2013 talking about two more deaths in mexico linked to those guns - not something I'd expect to see from "huffpo" if the scandal had been debunked.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/06/fast-and-furious-gun_n_3554854.html
Sorry, too many links. Have some more appropriate links, and thank you for catching that:
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/not-so-fast-on-fast-and-furious/
He is still the less steaming pile of shit compared to the alternative: Quantum Romney, who holds a superposition of all possible political positions, until one starts to observe him closely, then he will collapse to a position according to the respective political convictions of the observer. I think the main problem with Barack Obama is that he is only interested in his social programs and does not really care about anything else, leaving it to the persons in the departements and then staunchly supporting them even if they totally screw up. (And he seems to like people who know how to handle a computer and mainly thinks they can do no wrong as long as they are working for him.)
His criticism is neutral: he is criticizing the current president.
No, we'd just call you a moron.
Well, yeah, the federal government can't go bankrupt, it can just print more money and tax more. What it can do, however, is wreck the economy, and that's what it has been busy doing for a decade.
Yeah, those companies did great: lots of Obama's corporate cronies enriched themselves spectacularly.
You can say that again: the amount of money wasted on this useless corporate welfare pales in comparison to what both Democrats and Republicans have been wasting on agriculture, health care, and defense.