The Herald Endorses Gov. Chris Christie—Wait, Really?
Photo via AP
Following the New Hampshire Union Leader‘s, well, lead, the Boston Herald has endorsed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, while the Globe has endorsed Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Last election cycle, the Herald threw its weight behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Much like Christie on a nationally televised debate stage, the Herald editorial board wastes little time evoking terrorist attacks to make its case for the Livingston native, who once blew $82,594 on snacks at MetLife Stadium in 2010-11 and is currently polling at 3.7 percent nationwide. The massacres in Paris and San Bernardino—3,683 and 2,360 miles from Trenton, respectively—are mentioned in the gosh-darned lede.
“The world changed on Nov. 13 when terrorists slaughtered 130 people in Paris. Then at a holiday party in San Bernardino terror came to our homeland—again,” the Herald editorial board writes. “And while all of this was shaking our world, the Republican presidential campaign was becoming an increasingly bizarre sideshow.”
Hey, no argument here.
“A former U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, Christie knows something about being on the front lines of the ongoing war on terror,” it continues. “And he’s certainly not reluctant to talk about where this nation has gone astray on the international front.”
Christie’s campaign has used his six-year stint as a U.S. attorney as an all-purpose tool for everything from gun control to foreign policy. In the case of the former, Christie said in 2009 that his time as a federal prosecutor made him see the importance of regulations. This month, Christie said that same gig taught him how gun control laws “more greatly infringe on law-abiding citizens than they do anything to prevent crime.”
“In Christie’s case, it seems the more time passes since Christie’s been out of office, the less he recalls exactly what he learned as a federal prosecutor,” WaPo‘s Michelle Ye Hee Lee wrote, handing him the paper’s ultra-rare “upside-down Pinocchio” rating for superlative fibbing.
During an August GOP debate, Christie came under fire for another bit of revisionist history laid out during a skirmish with Sen. Rand Paul.
“I was appointed U.S. Attorney by President Bush on September 10, 2001, and the world changed enormously the next day,” he said. Except, he had to be confirmed by Senate first, which happened in December 2001. Christie didn’t take office until the following year. His campaign later clarified that he instead received a call from Bush on the 10th about the position. Whoops!
Back to the Herald: “Nor is [the Oval Office] a place for those driven solely by ego and blind ambition. We’ve seen too much of that too. ‘My way or the highway’ doesn’t work in Washington—even for a president willing to stomp all over the Constitution to get his way.”
An automotive metaphor! Surely you’re not describing a candidate whose administration just two years ago stood accused of closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge to settle a personal score with the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey? Even the New York Times noted that Christie and his staff “have a history of punishing those who have crossed him.”
“Gov. Chris Christie is a smart and principled candidate with a real shot at uniting his party and broadening its appeal in November,” the Herald concludes, seemingly unaware of Star-Ledger columnist Tom Moran’s shortlist of at least five instances in which Christie lied to his electorate.
“He is a remarkable talent with a silver tongue,” Moran wrote. “But if you look closely, you can see that it is forked like a serpent’s.”
