New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has become media’s latest punching bag, incurring a mountain of scorn and derision recently for endorsing GOP front-runner Donald Trump. The New York Times got in on the act Friday with some digs of its own.
“It’s hard for a non-New Jersey newspaper to know what to say. This is like gazing upon a bleak marriage, where Mr. Christie is the obsessed spouse chasing a destructive love interest (the White House, the national stage, his own reflection, Mr. Trump),” the paper’s editorial board said Friday.
The Times noted it has already called on Christie to go home to New Jersey and take care of his constituents, and therefore declined to join with six Garden State-based papers that have called on the Republican executive to resign.
“Not that he would listen. Mr. Christie sings only to and of himself; the stage he inhabits has only one spotlight, his own,” it added.
Christie shocked newsrooms last week when he endorsed Trump in the 2016 GOP primary. Shock soon turned to mockery as pundits and reporters on both sides of the aisle quickly noted that the governor actually has very little in common with the billionaire businessman.
For many in media, Christie’s endorsement had nothing to do with the primary, the Republican Party, conservative values, or the country, and everything to do with him being a glamor-chasing “wannabe celebrity.”
The scorn intensified Tuesday evening when Christie introduced Trump at a Super Tuesday victory rally in Florida, and then proceeded to stand silently on stage for the entirety of the casino tycoon’s address.
The mockery has gone on for several days now, and with the Times’ editorial Friday, it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up any time soon.
“Standing silently behind his new friend at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, Mr. Christie looked stricken. By what? Conscience? Regret? The melancholy words of a Simon and Garfunkel song?” the Times asked mockingly.
They continued, noting that things aren’t going so well in the governor’s state, “In his Super Tuesday reverie, Mr. Christie could have been thinking about the state’s fiscal crisis, or a transit strike that could soon strand thousands of commuters. But his mind was far away, with his body in Palm Beach.”
“As satisfying as it would be to join the chorus calling for Mr. Christie to quit, perhaps it is better to let him keep his latest promise. ‘I’m going to do my job,’ he told the press,” they concluded. “He said it on Thursday, March 3, 2016. Mark his words. For whatever they are worth.”
