Chris Christie: Media punching bag

The criticism started last week, when Christie, who once said of the billionaire businessman, “I don’t think [Trump’s] temperament is suited for [the presidency],” came out and endorsed the GOP front-runner.

It has only gotten worse for the governor since then.

“Trump’s collaborators, like the remarkably plastic Chris Christie … will find that nothing will redeem the reputations they will ruin by placing their opportunism in the service of his demagogic cynicism and anti-constitutional authoritarianism,” conservative columnist George Will wrote at the end of February.

Later, the New York Times published an op-ed Monday accusing Christie of being little more than a small-time “fanboy.”

“The fanboy side of Christie is probably the single most animating quality about him, more than the bullying style he can exhibit when challenged (by smaller targets) or the opportunism he has been accused of or the tell-it-like-it-is persona he once inhabited,” wrote Mark Leibovich. “As a big-shot public figure, Christie has always had a kid-on-Christmas quality. His position affords him an up-close view of the celebrity forces that so fascinate him.”

The Washington Free Beacon made the same argument last week, and said of the 2016 dropout that he was a “wannabe celebrity.”

From editorial boards calling on Christie to resign, to media personalities mocking the failed 2016 presidential candidate as a shameless toady, it has been a non-stop avalanche of jeering for the Republican governor.

“What an embarrassment. What an utter disgrace. We’re fed up with Gov. Chris Christie’s arrogance,” a half dozen Gannett-owned papers said in a joint statement published Tuesday. “We’re fed up with his opportunism. We’re fed up with his hypocrisy. We’re fed up with his sarcasm.”

The New Hampshire Union Leader, which supported Christie ahead of the Republican primary in the Granite State, actually retracted its endorsement this weekend.

“Watching Christie kiss the Donald’s ring this weekend — and make excuses for the man Christie himself had said was unfit for the presidency — demonstrated how wrong we were,” the paper’s editorial board wrote. “Rather than standing up to the bully, Christie bent his knee.”

On Super Tuesday, Christie introduced Trump at a victory rally in Florida. Later, as Trump delivered a lengthy monologue to supporters, Christie hung around in the background.

Christie’s newfound desire to play Trump’s tagalong, coupled with the appearance Tuesday evening that he was lost, has inspired brutal and unrelenting mockery from both left- and right-leaning members of the press.

“In his appearances with Trump, he looks like a man with no remaining dignity, like a prisoner giving a false confession in a North Korean propaganda film,” the Washington Examiner’s editorial board said.

Fusion referred to Christie Tuesday evening as “apparently lobotomized.”

“Did Chris Christie’s soul escape his body, and if so, where did it go?” asked the Verge.

The Daily Beast meanwhile published an article titled, “Trump’s Latest Acquisition: Christie’s Soul.”

Suderman noted in his Reason article, “As he stood there, staring silently into the distance, clapping occasionally (but not enthusiastically), Christie looked trapped and terrified, anxious and confused, like a panicked hostage desperate to escape his captor.”

“The power balance between the two men was clear: Christie, the vicious political attack dog, had somehow been tamed into a subservient house-pet,” he wrote. “There was something more than a bit pathetic about the sad, absurd little scene.”

Over at the Free Beacon, editor Sonny Bunch called Christie a “broken shell of a man,” and likened the governor to a “tortured and emasculated” character from the TV show “Game of Thrones.”

The Washington Post went all in on Christie’s strange performance, publishing an article Monday evening detailing his “pained expressions.”

The Post also published an op-ed, titled “Chris Christie’s wordless screaming,” wherein columnist Alexandra Petri said the governor looked like, “he had seen a ghost and the ghost had made him watch Mufasa die again.”

Last but not least, Gawker, which is known for its lack of subtlety, published an article Wednesday titled “Chris Christie, Incredibly, Found a Way to Be Even More Unlikeable.”