Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has taken a lot of flak for the slow sales of his book, Republican Rescue. During its first week in stores, it sold only 2,289 copies.

Even though Christie has been a long-time friend of Donald Trump and assisted him considerably during his campaigns and presidency, Christie generously criticizes Trump and his supporters for their penchant for falsehoods and conspiratorial thinking. He is well aware of the fact that Trump’s assertion that he won the 2020 presidential election, but it was stolen from him is clearly a Big Lie.

Christie believes that the Republican Party needs to separate itself from its right-wing extremists and revert to a conventional conservative platform based on ideas rather than myths, or simple opposition to whatever Democrats advocate.

He says,

“As Republicans, we need to free ourselves from the quicksand of endless grievances. We need to turn our attention to the future and quit wallowing in the past. We need to face the realities of the 2020 election and learn—not hide—from them. We need to discredit the extremists in our midst the way William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan once did. We need to renounce the conspiracy theorists and truth deniers, the ones who know better and the ones who are just plain nuts. We need to give our supporters facts that will help them put all those fantasies to rest so everyone can focus with clear minds on the issues that really matter. We need to quit wasting our time.”

Clearly not the word of a loyal Trumpster. Christie is not alone in asking Republicans to abandon Trump, the “Freedom Caucus” or Tucker Carlson and return to its core values of a generation ago. Georgia Lieutenant-Governor Geoff Duncan strongly critiqued his party in his book GOP 2.0. He was at Ground Zero for much of Trump’s efforts to unconstitutionally change the Georgia vote. Duncan is a solid conservative, but he believes that the party has been infected by extremism based on falsehoods tinged with absurd conspiracy theories. He stood by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and others who firmly opposed Trump’s efforts to “find nearly 12,000 votes for him” so that he could be declared the winner in Georgia.

In the wake of the poor opening sales of his book, many have said that while Christie’s ideas may be of value, he is seeking an audience that is far smaller than he anticipated. Democrats are not interested in rescuing the Republican Party and Trump supporters am not inclined to support traditional Republicans.

I would recommend Christie’s book for several reasons:

1. It provides further insight into one of the greatest mysteries for people who are not Republicans, and even some who are. I’m talking about the makeup of “the Republican Brain.” This is a phrase that became the title of Washington Post writer Chris Mooney’s 2012 book by the same name, The Republican Brain. The book is quite detailed and nuanced, but among the key points is that Republicans do not have the same level of empathy as others, nor do they engage in critical thinking the same way.
2. It is becoming more apparent that the number one challenge for Americans is preserving our democracy. This means that we should do all that we legally can do to restrain the extreme right. Progressives and other Democrats need to preserve and strengthen the traditional Republican Party, no matter how weak it might be now. Rather than mocking Christie, I think that it would be wise to support him in his party-building efforts, though not with most of his conservative social and economic policies.

Christie is interesting, because while he shows no mercy towards the Biden Administration, he supports numerous progressive ideas on community policing, eliminating debtors’ prisons, making school curricula more relevant, and providing improved and more accessible health care.

If we are going to preserve democracy, we need to be prepared to talk with the Chris Christies of the world.

The post Libs: Chris Christie’s New Book May Be Well Worth Checking Out appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If you listened to Republican Governors John Kasich and Chris Christie. as well as former Governor Jeb Bush, you would think that Ohio, New Jersey and Florida are knocking on the door of heaven on earth. All these states have eliminated terrible deficits and are swimming in financial surpluses. Small businesses are free of regulations, families have choices of schools and, well, to quote Garrison Keillor, “all the children are above average.” They’re also shouting from the mountaintop in Michigan, where Governor Rick Snyder has eliminated the deficit and created a $2 billion government surplus.

These governors should get frequent flyer miles and use the to visit a place or two in their states. I know Rick Snyder has the coin to go the 52 miles from the capital—Lansing–Flint. He’s been to Flint in recent months, but if you listened to him talk, you wouldn’t know it.

Here’s a simple question: “Does a miracle leave residue?” If you live in Flint, MI, you’re right in the middle of one of the many dung piles in what is affectionately called “the Great Lakes State.” Somehow, the state surplus occurred without remembering to continue to provide the city of Flint with clean, fresh water from Lake Huron, rather than the industrial backwash of the Flint River.

Has John Kasich of Ohio been to the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland lately? And to Chris Christie of New Jersey, have you come up with any new ideas for how to improve the traffic flow from New Jersey to Manhattan over the George Washington Bridge? And to Jeb Bush, how do you feel about that 29% poverty rate in Miami? And if you cross Biscayne Bay to Miami Beach, is it possible that climate change might have anything to do with why your shoes are always getting soaked on Collins Avenue?

If our 50 states were ever “laboratories of democracy,” they have now become laboratories on how to undermine democracy. Kasich’s Ohio and Bush’s Florida are among the leading states in making it more difficult for citizens to exercise their American right to vote. And how is democracy working in terms of providing health care for the poor? In one of the greatest domestic miscalculations of the 1960s, Medicaid administration was turned over to the states. Now 22 states, all with either with a Republican governor or a Republican-controlled legislature, have refused essentially “free” federal money to provide necessary care and services to the poor. That’s something that even Donald Trump has said would not happen in his plan “to make America great again.”

Yes, the states came first, just as the Lords came first to the British Parliament. But each is an anachronism. The Brits have wisely made the House of Lords ceremonial and left the business of governing to the House of Commons.

That’s what we should do in the United States with our thoroughly disunited states. Just as the “Lords” in Britain have little tasks to keep them busy, we could keep the states in tact enough so that they don’t have total identity crises. They could continue to be the sites of major universities bearing their names; they could continue to have birds and songs that have historically represented them. They could even remain on maps.

But the federal government must be the only protector of human rights; states could no longer erode them. America’s metropolitan areas could be governed by jurisdictions that actually reflect where people live and work.

Yes, this cannot happen overnight. But put the idea of sending states out to pasture on the list of ideas that should be presented for consideration to today’s and tomorrow’s students. Perhaps in 25 or 50 years, we can actually move in that direction. In the meantime, you might want to use a little caution, even hesitation, when hearing Republican governors brag about their states.

Oh, and lest I forget, I will continue to be thankful to the legion of progressive Democrats in state legislators who keep fighting the erosion of our rights and economic fairness. I’d love to see some of you run for Congress!

The post Our states are as anachronistic as the House of Lords appeared first on Occasional Planet.

This daily blog is composed of clips and links from other progressive blog and news sites, accompanied by my own observations. It documents the failure and decline of the Republican party and the efforts of the Obama administration to build a new, lasting Democratic coalition.

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing

GOP’s pitiful, non-existent agenda: Salon.com

Having already done nothing, House GOP plans more doing nothing: Daily Kos

GOP leaders hope to maintain party unity by doing nothing for the rest of the year  : Salon.com

Policy tradeoffs: what would YOU do?

CBO: Obama’s minimum wage plan would cost jobs but help millions: Washington Post

Does Obama have a CBO problem? :The Week

Millions of families would benefit from increase in minimum wage: Mother Jones

Your daily Christie

New heights for the big sleazy: Talking Points Memo

Bobby Jindal tries again to re-launch his feckless presidential campaign

Bobby Jindal relaunches himself one more time: Talking Points Memo 

Jindal among least popular governors: Political Wire

One Pol Who Is Definitely Out of Touch: Washington Monthly

Yesterday we had George Zimmerman whining that HE’S the victim. Now Michael Dunn goes one step farther

Michael Dunn compares himself to rape victim: New York Magazine

In Fox World: Hillary’s “War on Women”

Fox brings Clinton conspiracy theorist: Crooks and Liars

Bonus item: Inside a frat party for the Wall Street elite. Don’t miss it!

One-percent jokes and plutocrats in drag: What I saw when I crashed a Wall Street secret society: New York Magazine

Filthy rich but secretly terrified: Inside the one percent’s sore winner backlash:  Salon.com

I don’t get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don’t run ads, etc.). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a “mission,” it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.

The post The nothing Republican agenda: Progressive Blog Digest appeared first on Occasional Planet.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s highly publicized political woes are creating an economic and artistic surge for political cartoonists. Here’s a gallery of cartoons satirizing the latest headline- and eyebrow-raising [and public-opinion-poll-killing]  revelations in the continuing saga.

The post Chris Christie: A gift to political cartoonists appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The New York Port Authority got its start as a Progressive Era project–an agency that would work for the overall benefit of the very interconnected New York-New Jersey region. Who–outside of the Tri-State region–knew? Or maybe we knew, but forgot. Or maybe people who don’t like big-ass progressive projects that work for the common good just don’t want to know. Anyway…

Elizabeth Kolbert explains the Port Authority’s high-minded history as well as its more contemporary politicization in her New Yorker article, “How Chris Christie Ruined the Port Authority,”

 …a product of the Progressive Era, the authority was to be insulated from the vagaries of politics on both sides of the river, which is to say also from Trenton’s and Albany’s multifarious forms of corruption. Half its commissioners would be appointed by the governor of New York and half by the governor of New Jersey, but to promote their independence they would serve staggered, six-year terms.  Amazingly, this arrangement worked for the better part of the twentieth century. One of the Port Authority’s first major construction projects was, as it happens, the George Washington Bridge.

…The authority earned a reputation for integrity and professionalism. Writing in the nineteen-fifties, a reporter for the Newark News noted the “incredible vigor and efficiency” of its operations, “as contrasted with the slumberland of the average City Hall.”

Then, along came Chris Christie:

…As soon as Christie took office, in 2010, he set about stuffing the weakened agency with his supporters. A lawsuit filed by a former employee revealed that within two years the new administration had sought berths at the Port Authority for nearly fifty loyalists.

…By September, 2013, when the events at the center of the scandal took place, the authority was in such disarray that top-level Christie appointees were barely speaking to their colleagues from across the Hudson.

The post How Chris Christie ruined the Port Authority appeared first on Occasional Planet.

This daily blog, Progressive Blog Digest,  is composed of clips and links from other progressive blog and news sites, accompanied by my own observations. It documents the failure and decline of the Republican party and the efforts of the Obama administration to build a new, lasting Democratic coalition.

Something happens to Republican men when they talk about women and sex

GOP’s Huckabee on birth control:  Federal government shouldn’t help women who can’t control their libido

Huckabee on the female sex drive

Why women do not love Mike Huckabee: Daily Beast:

Tony Perkins blames President Obama for campus sexual assault crisis in bizarre rant

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) has a new book in which the congressman argues a wife is to “voluntarily submit.” . . .Rachel Maddow

Rick Santorum defends Mike Huckabee rant

Wow. Bob McDonnell had a chance to plea bargain, to protect his wife. He refused.

Follow the money, cherchez la femme

Here’s a word you never want to hear: subpoena

Christie’s bridge scandal generates new federal subpoenas

Christie campaign, NJ GOP subpoenaed by U.S. Attorney: Daily Kos

Aides back Hoboken mayor’s story: Daily Kos 

More bad news for Chris Christie: Salon

The man behind the Chris Christie probe: Crooks and Liars

One of the things we’re learning about Tea Party candidates: people this crazy about their political views are often . . . errr . . . unreliable in other respects too

Steve Stockman Goes Missing: Daily Kos

Tea Party firebrand Steve Stockman may be running the worst primary campaign ever: Salon

One-time conservative wunderkind Dinesh D’Souza has crashed and burned: Talking Points Memo

Dinesh D’Souza’s series o unfortunate events: Daily Beast

The Heritage Foundation: back from the brink?

Heritage Foundation hires Stephen Moore: Talking Points Memo

Stephen Moore to the rescue: Washington Monthly

Bonus item: What John Boehner really thinks: Daily Beast

The post Progressive Blog Digest: Girl talk appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I am addicted to the Chris Christie bridge scandal. In trying to figure out why this story has resonated so deeply with me, I happened upon a unique possibility. I believe it is my love for fictional political thrillers. The writer in me cannot help looking at this scandal as the plot of a novel. It’s not difficult to come up with twists that have yet to be discovered. The more I think about them, the more I feel there’s a lot more we have yet to learn.

Chris Christie, being an East Coast governor and Republican, never showed up on my radar until everyone noticed him. Just before the presidential election, and after hurricane Sandy’s landfall, Chris Christie abandoned Mitt Romney and started hanging out with President Obama. To me, it seemed a strange thing to do. Yes, I heard Christie say that he would do anything to help his state, but he was overly affectionate, so very chummy, and the timing was insane, if you were rooting for the Republican to win the election.

Fast-forward to the bridge scandal and it got me thinking. Christie is being painted as a vindictive man who cannot be crossed. Whether the bridge scandal is payback for a non-endorsement or something else, none of the theories has a positive spin for the governor of New Jersey. He has the appearance of a petty, small-minded man who will break any rule to get his message out: don’t mess with Christie.

He is also known as a micro-manager whose fingers are in every pie. Resembling Richard Nixon at the height of his paranoid thuggery, Christie never forgets a slight. It didn’t matter that his election was in the bag. Like Nixon, he could not ignore his own base nature. Or, as Chris Hedges wrote in Truthdig, “Christie is the caricature of a Third World despot. He has a vicious temper, a propensity to bully and belittle those weaker than himself, an insatiable thirst for revenge against real or perceived enemies, and little respect for the law and, as recent events have made clear, for the truth.”

How, in our imaginary novel, do we apply what we’ve learned in the bridge scandal to what happened at the end of the last presidential election? Mitt Romney had been receiving a lot of pressure from the east coast moneymen to make Chris Christie his running mate. This was the same money Mitt came from himself, so one would assume it carried a lot of influence. And yet, he went with Paul Ryan, a Midwesterner. It leaves us with a lot of questions. How did Christie feel about getting snubbed? And for a man like Christie, who had spent his life living in the land of vendettas and whose standard operating procedure was, “We don’t get mad; we get even,”[1] — how would he reconcile being passed over for a prize that big? His character tells us that he would not let it pass. Is it possible that Chris Christie’s behavior in the run-up to the election had more to do with revenge than hurricane relief. Perhaps hugs with Obama were a small price to pay for helping to lead Romney to a humiliating loss.

Or was it something even more Machiavellian? He may have killed two birds with one stone. By helping torpedo Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidency, Christie played a role in getting Barack Obama a second term. Had Romney won, it would most likely have been eight years until the next election. And then Paul Ryan, who would still be a young man, could try for his eight years. That’s 16 years of Republican rule that may have left the country desperate for some Democrats. Where would that have left Christie? He is an impatient man when it comes to power. He would not want to wait 16+ years. Instead, because Romney lost, he just had to wait the four years of Obama’s second term and then the field was wide open.

Christie has said on more than one occasion that he was willing to do anything in order to win whatever he had his sights on. Everyone knows his eyes are firmly fixed on the Presidency. Just what is he willing to do? Calling for some traffic problems seems small in comparison to sabotaging a presidential election. And yet, his abandoning Romney and cozying up to the President may have played at least some role in the reelection of Barack Obama therefore giving Chris Christie a clear shot in 2016… as long as no one figured out who he really was.

Let’s hope this is one book that does not have a happy ending for its villainous central character. Time for this petty despot to fade into a footnote.

——————————————————————————–

[1] Christy quote repeated by Richard Merkt on “Up w/Steve Kornacki” 01/11/2014

The post Chris Christie, paperback villain appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In April, 2013, Renee Shur wrote a wonderful piece in the Occasional Planet entitled, “Dear MSNBC: Grow up, already.” She truly nailed it with how the frequent supercilious and bombastic approach of its hosts undermined the communication of progressive news.

I have adopted Renee’s point of view and taken my own vacations from MSNBC. But when it came to the transgressions of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, I came back home to MSNBC because I knew that it was most equipped to dig into the story and deliver current, and often hidden, information on a daily basis. I was not disappointed with MSNBC, beginning with coverage of Christie’s lame press conference on January 9 and continuing to the present.

Most informative to me have been “Politics Nation with Al Sharpton,” “All In with Chris Hayes,” “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, and most particularly “Up with Steve Kornacki.” Each of the hosts seems to have toned down his or her shouting, and rather than being snarky they’ve been investigative. They have had live interviews with a series of New Jersey state officials as well as local journalists. Coming from Missouri, I was shocked at the intelligence, the knowledge-base and the critical thinking skills of these men and women.* Among the legislators and journalists who were interviewed and who filled in so many of the blanks in the story were:

• Barbara Buono, former NJ state senator and Christie opponent in 2013 gubernatorial race
• John Reitmeyer, State House Reporter for Bergen County Record
• Mark Sokolich, mayor of Ft. Lee
• John Wisniewski, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee
• Loretta Weinberg, State Senator whose district includes Ft. Lee
• Dawn Zimmer, mayor of Hoboken

This was quite a contrast to what I saw and heard in the mainstream press. For example, just before Christie was to deliver his “State of the State” address, CNN pundit Gloria Borger was asked what he (Christie) needed to do in his speech. She immediately said that he needed to regain the trust of the legislators as well as the people of New Jersey. What a pat and meaningless answer. What words can someone who has been an on-going liar say to convince an audience that he’s now telling the truth? Really there are none. If someone wants to regain trust, he or she must act in a trustworthy fashion – over an extended period of time. After former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned from the governorship, he spent several years below the radar, and in time gained new respect. Now, he is a leader of the progressive movement. In contrast, former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner resigned in disgrace, continued to engage in the type of behavior that forced his recognition, and then ran for mayor of the city of New York while all his transgression were still fresh in voters’ minds. He came in last in the field with single-digit support.

At this point, Christie has almost all of the Nixonian characteristics of someone who is going to fall, and fall hard. Back in the time of Watergate, CBS News was one of the main gatherers and reporters of all that Nixon had done and continued to do. Today, CBS is but a dot on the landscape, with short and often misleading mentions of “Bridge-gate.” In contrast, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post and many local outlets in New Jersey are hot on the case. We’re most fortunate to have them doing so. While MSNBC has cut into my reading time, it does provide enough commercial time so that it’s not all lost. They’re doing a great job – stay cool, stay calm, and watch your ratings increase as you do so.

* I recognize that there are some outstanding legislators in Missouri; unfortunately they’re not in positions of power.

The post When it comes to Christie, MSNBC rises to the occasion appeared first on Occasional Planet.

First we heard James Carville, one of President Clinton’s closest political advisors, who said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Now, with a clearer vision of what Richard Nixon did during Watergate, we can say, “It’s always the cover up.” That’s what happened to Nixon in Watergate, to Clinton with Monica Lewinski, to General David Patraeus, to countless other public figures throughout the nation’s history. The initial act or even “crime” may be bad, but that malfeasance is always compounded by the effort to cover it up.

If Richard Nixon had admitted to commissioning “the White House plumbers” to instigate a host of pranks against Democrats, he might have survived. After all, he had a tremendous electoral lead over his opponent, Sen. George McGovern (D-SD). Similarly, Christie had a tremendous lead over his 2013 Democratic opponent for governor, State Senator Barbara Buono.

Nixon held the country in suspense for over two years by not taking responsibility for his transgressions. Rather, he was firing attorneys-general, special prosecutors, or top White House aides, all the while trying to shift the blame. Without Watergate, he might now be viewed as a decent president who actually continued or strengthened numerous Great Society programs and also opened the door to China. His greatest mistake would have been his failure to get America out of Vietnam in a timely fashion. This certainly would have hurt his reputation, but not as much as mishandling Vietnam and then compounded by Watergate.

Who knows what lies ahead for Chris Christie? In all likelihood he will either be caught lying (did he possibly have a tape-recording system in his office)? If it’s not lying, then either his judgment of the character of his top aides was terrible or he was simply a careless manager of his staff. He has already been mimicking Nixon by firing aides, in his case with the crassness to not even meet with them face-to-face.

At this point, his best strategy might be to (1) admit what really happened, (2) resign, and (3) join a host of former politicians who wrote the book The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step to Survive Crisis. He could give his honest assessment of what happened and then write a book about it, including advice to other politicians suggesting ways in which they can limit the damage when the do something wrong. It’s not the best place to be, but it’s about as good as it gets after the initial demise. I seriously doubt that he will take this approach, but when he likely resigns in full disgrace, he may have wished that he took this route.

Considering Christie’s hubris, I doubt that he will relent on the fight. Perhaps what we as citizens can do is to continue to be skeptical of politicians who are in the middle of bizarre incidents and plead for us to believe them and extend special forgiveness. It doesn’t pass the giggle test.

The post Advice to Christie: It’s always the cover-up appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There was a time when I might have believed Chris Christie’s denials. I guess it’s still possible that he’s telling the truth, but I rather doubt it. I learned a lot about someone not telling the truth on July 22, 2013. That happened to be the day when Milwaukee Brewer’s slugger and former Most Valuable Player Ryan Braun was nailed by Major League Baseball for using performing enhancing drugs. He accepted a suspension for the rest of the season.  But how could this man be lying? Just look at him in this two-minute video:

Like Braun, Christie seemed to be so innocent in his initial denials.  Yes, he was a tough guy, but he had a fundamental “goodness” that excluded blatant lying when it came to governing.  His marathon statement and press conference on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014 may have convinced me of a certain degree of innocence. But the lesson I learned from Ryan Braun kept me from buying Christie’s so-called “come-clean” words.

As so often is the case in politics, when something goes wrong, we tend to have a very limited view of why it happened and what could be done to prevent it from reoccurring.  Christie is embroiled in a crisis of largely unexplained traffic jams at the western end of the George Washington Bridge in Ft. Lee, NJ last September.  The GW Bridge is the busiest one in the world.  According to CNN:

Christie and his staff originally blamed the closures and the traffic delays on a mishandled traffic study, something he reiterated at his news conference.

He said he didn’t know if it was “a traffic study that morphed into a political vendetta or a political vendetta that morphed into a traffic study.”

The incident inconvenienced motorists, but also affected public safety, Fort Lee officials said.

The emergency services chief in the town referred to one case in a letter to the mayor obtained by CNN involving paramedics who were delayed in reaching an elderly woman who had suffered a heart attack. She was reached by an ambulance but later died. Further details of the woman’s death haven’t been released.

In his news conference on Thursday, January 9, 2014, Governor Christie insisted that he did not know that his top aides were involved in creating the traffic jams until e-mails among them were published by the Bergen Record. This is the basis of him saying that he did not tell any lies.  What he dare not say was that he was competent in managing the entire situation.  And clearly, he managed it poorly.

Imagine that you are the governor of a state in which a seemingly unexplained traffic jam continues beyond four days.  Commuters, public safety vehicles, travelers, and students were essentially frozen in place.  Millions of dollars of productivity was lost and tempers predictably flared.

An immediate response can be that Governor Christie was incompetent because he literally did not know what was happening in the offices next to his. Assuming that he was telling the truth, and under the circumstances that’s quite a leap, he was concerned about what had happened in Ft. Lee, but he didn’t exhibit any of the determination and attention to detail that he presumably did when eleven months before he responded to Hurricane Sandy, which struck the Jersey shore. He failed to contact Mayor Mark Sokolich of Ft. Lee to cooperate in finding out what happened and what could be done to remedy the problem. He clearly did not tell his top aides to clear their desks of other pressing needs and make clearing the traffic jam their top priority. Had he done so, he may have found out about the complicity in September rather than January.

Coupled with the disdain that many of us have for Governor Christie, it’s possible that some empathy for him would be in order. Does he not have a set of jobs that are simply impossible for one person to do? He is governor of the nation’s 11^th most populous state. He is chairman of the Republican Governors Conference. He is presumably a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. The time commitments on him make it nearly impossible to be the kind of attentive father to his children that he wants to be.

Let’s face it, if all that he did was his “day job” as governor of New Jersey and meet his family commitments, he would be a very busy man. If his ideas had not been focused on gaining political support from fellow governors, he would have had more time. Had he not been strategizing a presidential run and taking frequent trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, he would have had more time. Perhaps then, doing the obvious in Ft. Lee would have been on his radar screen.

Through most of 2013, President Barack Obama was definitely “on the job.” But when it comes to management of something as large as the federal government, even he couldn’t properly oversee everything. The web site for the Affordable Care Act was riddled with holes when it opened for business on October 1. The president was busy with a number of issues, including the government shut-down forced upon us by Republicans, and impending government default because the debt ceiling was not raised, and trying to gain more control over perhaps the most complicated agency ever created in Washington, the NSA.

Other countries, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, have campaigning for political offices compacted in short periods of time, such as six weeks. If the United States would move more in this direction, we would have far more attentive elected officials who are simultaneously running for office more effective in their day jobs than we do now.

Let’s face it, Chris Christie screwed up. But we, the public, did not do him any favors by making governing and politicking an ineffective combination. Let’s do our part as we expect more of elected officials such as Governor Christie, including telling the truth.

The post What Ryan Braun taught me about Chris Christie appeared first on Occasional Planet.