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Was Governor Christie faking it when he met with the Editorial Board of The Record of Woodland Park last Wednesday, followed the next day by a front page that made the paper look like his personal journal as he staked out his positions on education, transportation and other issues?
What else can you conclude after reading the column at the bottom of Page A-11 today by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin -- the paper's chief Christie apologist and one of those who met with him.
Doblin actually compares Christie's good mood last week to actress Meg Ryan faking an orgasm in that famous "When Harry Met Sally" scene filmed at Katz's Delicatessen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. You can't make this up.
But readers can get their biggest guffaw when Doblin refers to himself as "a journalist."
Doblin -- like Road Warrior John Cichowski and Columnist Mike Kelly -- has to employ writing gimmicks, plays on words and slapstick to get readers to pay any attention to what amounts to drivel and drool.
He is the only editorial page editor The Record has ever had who writes an opinion column, then turns around to shape the newspaper's position on important issues of the day.
How can Doblin praise Christie so lavishly in column after column, and be objective about the impact of his policies on state residents? I submit he can't.
The Christie sandwich
At the end of the column, Doblin says, "Someone should name a sandwich after him [Christie] at Katz's."
First, the putz confuses Katz's with the Stage Deli; the former doesn't name its sandwiches. At the latter, it would be "The Chris Christie Sandwich: Bluster, Baloney and Bullshit with Mayo."
Doblin's column comes one day after Republican flunky Carl Golden, in a piece on the front of Doblin's Sunday Opinion section, praised the job Christie has done since he took office -- carefully excluding any mention of the governor's assault on the middle and working classes, and his pandering to the Borgs and other multimillionaires.
You'd think one journalistic blow job was enough for a few days, but Doblin apparently caught his breath in time to write today's column, and even echoes Golden's call for Christie to do some rebuilding during the rest of his term.
Just above the Doblin column on A-11 is a letter to the editor criticizing Christie's drastic cuts in funding to adult day-care centers, which serve disabled seniors and young adults. Now, the state will pay for only 125 clients -- half of the number the centers are licensed to serve.
Where are the copy editors?
Also on A-11, Margulies' cartoon confuses local and federal law-enforcement jurisdictions in a cartoon showing Christie with a Tommy gun as he refuses to return bags filled with the $271 million the Feds spent on the rail tunnels the governor killed. It should read, "You're not gonna take me alive, marshal!" (not "copper").
Is Margulies saying Christie is a gangster or glorifying his pugnacious style?
Jennifer Borg in the news
On the Business page (A-10), readers learn Jennifer A. Borg, 45, has become president of the New Jersey Press Association.
A lawyer and general counsel to North Jersey Media Group of Woodland Park, she undoubtedly will advise newspapers on the ethics of allowing editors to fudge the truth when defending age-discrimination lawsuits.
Is there anything today on Page 1 of any real interest? More about lobbyists, more about the planned sports authority overhaul and a wire service story on how stress takes a toll on "women's hearts, too." That's all earth-shattering news.
Look at that desperate front-page photo of an explosion of fuel tankers in Afghanistan -- part of the media's body-count journalism. Will some wire service explain why security continues to be so poor in Iraq and Afghanistan?
In Iraq, shopping for food or applying for a job as a police officer often is fatal.
Local yokels
In Local, Staff Writer John A. Gavin reports that North Jersey schools are saving their pre-kindergarten programs and cutting elsewhere after Christie slashed state education aid.
One of the most interesting stories in the paper -- a Maywood congregation's re-creation of a meal served during a period of coexistence among Jews, Muslims and Christians in medieval Spain -- is buried on L-2.
On F-2 in Better Living today, the "Quick bites" column by Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherill is mostly made up of thinly disguised press releases from companies that sent her free food.
Another great paper from Editor Francis Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Features Director Barbara Jaeger.
Oh come on, Victor, you can't be serious. You mean Meg Ryan was faking it?
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