Christie caught in another whopper

At least one reporter at The Record and many editors aren't aware the agency changed its name in 2004.

A 29-page report from the General Accountability Office says Governor Christie doesn't just eat Whoppers.


When it comes to the Hudson River rail tunnels he scrapped in 2010, Christie told a lot of whoppers about potential cost overruns, taxpayer exposure and other issues, the GAO said.


(The name of the agency -- the investigative arm of Congress -- was changed in 2004 from General Accounting Office, but the column on Page 1 of The Record today uses the old name.)


The GAO report comes as no surprise to residents who recall all the shucking and jiving the GOP bully did after the state blew $400 million in federal education money.


Times broke story


The New York Times broke the GAO story, not The Record.


Although Charles Stile doesn't know the agency's new name, his column today is one of the few clearly critical accounts he's written about Christie (A-1).


"He routinely tells fawning television talk show hosts how he closed an $11 billion to $13 billion budget deficit, when, in fact, he didn't," Stile reports today on A-6.


Grabbed $4B


After Christie killed the project, he grabbed $4 billion in Port Authority and New Jersey Turnpike money for the state Transporation Trust Fund, avoiding the need to raise the low gasoline tax to fix roads and rebuild bridges.


Stile says "that allowed Christie to keep his campaign pledge not to raise taxes. That also bolstered his national reputation. That looks like it was the priority all along."


Neither the news story nor the column on A-1 today reports that by killing the rail tunnels to Manhattan, Christie set back the progress of public transit a decade or more.


High-heel hysteria


Nor is there any mention Christie told the media the overweight first lady didn't like the project, because she would have to walk too far to connect to the New York City subway.


On the front of Local, readers are puzzled by what purports to be a photo of the Great Falls in Paterson after the Passaic River was diverted (L-1).


Broken headline


They're also scratching their heads over the headline on the Road Warrior column, which says, "Topping off tank may do car harm."


But the column clearly says filling the tank with as much gasoline as possible would result in "poor gas mileage" and escaping fumes would contribute "to air  pollution."


Neither of those would "harm" or hurt the car, so the headline is incorrect. 


More troubling is yet another piece by Staff Writer John Cichowski that relies on reader e-mails, instead of reporting on commuting problems -- the column's original mission.


Is today's paper the best Editors Marty Gottlieb, Deirdre Sykes and Liz Houlton can do?