That Bridge Too Far Again

Things are getting distinctly worse for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as yesterday's story directly tying his office to a series of lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in order to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, NJ as revenge for the mayor refusing to endorse Christie apparently had far more serious consequences:

Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department. 

The woman later died, borough records show. 

In at least two of those instances, response time doubled, noted EMS coordinator Paul Favia, who documented those cases in a Sept. 10 letter to Mayor Mark Sokolich, which The Record obtained.

And it gets worse.

"There was a missing child that day. The police had trouble conducting that search because they were tied up directing traffic," says Jan Goldberg, a Fort Lee councilman who works with local emergency personnel. Police found the missing child, a four-year-old. "But with the streets in the condition they were, I would venture to say that the search took longer," Goldberg says. 

Ila Kasofsky, a Fort Lee councilwoman, tells Mother Jones that ambulances and other emergency vehicles could not get through the gridlock. In the aftermath of the lane closures, Kasofsky says she spoke with a Fort Lee resident who couldn't get over the bridge to support her husband through major surgery. Another Fort Lee woman was unable to pick up her son after his dialysis session.

Steve M argues that Christie has been too moderate for the Tea Party lunatics to try to save him.

In Christie's, um, glory days, Fox Nation would have been dominated by items intended to spin this story his way. The most damaging information available would be dug up about the mayor of Fort Lee. We'd be told that the first responders there do a lousy job on ordinary days, so any ambulance delays must be the result of something other than the lane closure on the bridge. There'd be smears against reporters working the story, and against Jersey Democrats denouncing the lane closure. You know the drill. 

But none of that pushback is being generated by the conservative noise machine because Christie hasn't been tickling right-wing pleasure centers the way he once did. When was the last time he yelled at a teacher and posted the video online anyway? Seems as if it's been a while. I guess he wanted to seem like America's new bipartisan dreamboat, going into his reelection campaign and into 2016. 

He should have kept up the on-camera partisan nastiness, because he needs backup now, and he's not getting it. The right has abandoned him.

Indeed.  The right is more annoyed that Christie is distracting the media from BENGHAZI(tm)! than they are worried about saving his national image.  They could care less about him.  They don't want Christie as the nominee anyway, not after McCain and Romney.  They want someone who will make being a woman, a minority, LGBTQ, or a Democrat all but illegal, and Christie's not that guy.

We'll see how the Sunday shows handle Christie's situation.  If the regular Village Pundits there turn on him, he's done.

[UPDATE]  Christie is holding an 11 AM presser, and the NY Post is reporting he's fired Kelly (the aide in the emails from his office) and his campaign manager, who was in charge of "damage control".