Written by Robert S. Becker   

The looming national horror, beside the designer bridge gridlock that redefined gridlock forever, remains the prospect of viewing Chris Christie striped bare. Lord protect us from the spectacle of this particular emperor sans clothes. Talk about a game-changer. For starters, feast on the sub-species, fat cat criminal, disheveled in open robe and slippers. Then wonder how such hard-won media armor dissolved in a New Jersey second.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116601/chris-christies-rise-and-fall

Judging by this jaw-dropping amateur-hour pageant, neither scandals nor "cover-ups" are what they used to be. If Washington, goes the old saw, is Hollywood for ugly people, New Jersey is Washington for repulsive screw-ups.

Yet the special magic of the Christie-Bridge scandal transcends its opening gambit, ongoing melodrama, or inevitable condemnations. Who imagined our favored default image of government gridlock would lose all metaphoric meaning? Who imagined an election in the bag would spur official pettiness that made real-world gridlock for thousands of innocents an organized team sport?

With a gold medal in flubbed bullying, the scope, duration, crudeness, and tactical failure sets this dirty trick apart. Above all, no scandal across our age of dirty tricks is more understandable and less defensible. Every sixth-grader, every low-information voter, instantly gets the story: a bizarrely-conceived revenge ploy goes badly awry, incurring public mayhem while leaving the targeted mayor not only unintimidated but empowered. Say what? Schoolyard bullies incited an unmotivated tantrum that turned a neutral Democrat into a potent enemy? Good show, as poetic justice confirms a new modern low-point for amateur conspirators.

Didn't Cheney Master This?

Compare this sustained Christie flop to V.P. Cheney's masterpiece of evil-doing when outing the CIA agent, Valerie Plame. Cheney first shielded his office and administration with degrees of separation between source and target. Then he connived with a top staffer to betray their own government by leaking the morsel to the press, which did the dirty work. The villainy of indirection punished Plame, along with the CIA (no Cheney ally), while menacing her husband, whose testimony doomed the disintegrating Iraq propaganda. It took years to unpack this capital infamy and only intermediaries got shafted: the darkest WH thug escaped with only a scratch (and full pension). That's how triumphant dirty tricks are done.

Ditto: brazenly counterfeit indictments on Iraqi WMDs, Saddam's agency in 9/11, even laughable, imminent mushroom clouds. Because outlandish, though plausible fantasies create their own fantasy world, hard evidence couldn't negate scams. No expert could reverse the general claim, that Saddam threatened us with blustery belligerence. Plus, Cheney slandered all critics as stupid, uninformed (lacking his secret sources) or virtual traitors. And all crowned with this paranoid whopper: every 1% threat justifies all-out, unilateral, pre-emptive broadsides against fabricated enemies.

Give your maniacal Karl Rove a teaspoon of obfuscation and outpours a truckload of deniability: what, assailing us better-informed patriots? Not only did evil inventions shield the Dubya fortress, but re-elected a "war president," as unintended miscues got written off to the fog of war. How opposite stands Christie, buffeted by malice and bad faith swelled by implausible denials -- all wrapped in glaring incompetence.

America pooh-poohs ruthlessness when serving a (perceived) winning hand, but not when losers screw up, double-down, get caught, then are badly burned by their own backfire. That's why Christie will never be president. That's why party big wigs left him hanging. Even if the fat one gets off, selling his "no knowledge, no liability" fiction, is he not stamped with the loser's mark, alongside Gingrich, Perry, McCain and Romney?

Bridge Closure to Nowhere

In short, the Christie crowd gives dirty tricksters a bad name. Apparently, the governor had not communicated to staff what successful roguery is about, having been there, done that. Whereas the Bush-Cheney gang anticipated countless defenses (making themselves the victims), the hollow Christie creamer was caught flatfooted, his entire bulk standing on a pinhead. Thus, he had to blame a veteran staff for an unbelievable rash of misjudgments, treating them like folks he hadn't talked to in months. No wonder the feeding frenzy: every resentful victim of Christie's heavy boot is free to blast away. A scandal goes bad when setting up other axes to fall: that firestorm ends in criminal indictment. Finally, we have the fabled bridge closure to nowhere.

If nothing else, the fake Christie campaign narrative is kaput. This champion sold bipartisanship but now we know that's not about working with Democrats but only criminal allies vs. "enemies" who won't play ball. Second, Christie promoted his straight-shooting, street smarts, but his scandal confirms the opposite. Who believes this super-micromanager was ambushed by the dumbest staff this side of the Three Stooges? No straight-shooter hires such a mess of witlings.

Third, Christie presumed to fill in the establishment GOP spot, replacing that winning, ex-governor and friend to Wall Street who first appointed this ex-federal prosecutor. Yes, that Dubya, whose immortal fakery Christie embraces, "I'm a uniter, not a divider." Just as this pledge rests among Bush's greatest lies, so Christie's entitlement withers, lucky to finish his term. How fitting that our disgraced uniter executes the real Dubya philosophy: "you're either with us or against us."

Tainted Goods, If He Survives

Yet enough Christie bluster, with enough crony billions, would have like Romney overcome TP revulsion. Christie's earthy charisma had turned obesity into a virtue, as if packing a room of donors anticipated fully filling up the White House. Perfect replacement for that skinny, Harvard egghead, refusing to hobnob with mere lawmakers: here's the new, pugnacious "rogue maverick" who revels in rough and tumble scrums. Christie would have been the oligarch's dream: the ruthless, socially conservative crossover who charms Democrats, despite dumping on teachers, nurses, the jobless, and any "losers" dumb enough to cross him.

One knowledgeable friend fears Christie's sleazy hustle isn't done for, morphing now into the appealing "comeback kid" outlasting staff treason. Doesn't that explain why Christie now praises Dubya (weirdly and illogically) as "grossly underappreciated," mainly for being handed two dubious wins? Winning is everything. Isn't that what Christie's latest bipartisan schtick comes to, attacking Obama for lacking "respect for the other party"? Like his praise for Dubya, Christie's ludicrous inversion mocks the truth: Obama's compromised caving is legendary, defaulting to Republican thinking on war, spying, banksters, the Pentagon, even Romneycare.

Finally, the tin-ear Christie perverts the great issue of our age, inequality of assets and income, into a straw man he calls "income equality." With astonishing demagoguery, Christie whines everyone having the same salary is "antithetical to the country's abiding belief" that rewards hard work and merit. "You want income equality?," he bellows, "That is mediocrity. Everybody can have an equal, mediocre salary." Say what?

Governor, no one breathing today endorses your absurd phantom of "income equality." LOL. Thus, Christie goes from jaw-dropping Dubya admirer to Dubya-clone, leaping into the rightwing alternative universe where oligarchic blinders remake reality. I expected Christie to lay low but, if his strategy of changing the subject is incredible rightwing nonsense, that GOP primary pitch will offend his core target: moderates and independents. Apparently, Ted Cruz is not the only attention-desperate demagogue on the right who doesn't know when to shut up and sit tight.