Let's hope for beginning of the end of Christie nightmare

This image of Donald Trump, winner of the New Hampshire Republican primary on Tuesday, was part of an art exhibit last month at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Would you just look at that sad mug on the front page of The Record today.

Staff Photographer Kevin R. Wexler captured a humiliated Governor Christie, who appears to have had the stuffing knocked out of him in New Hampshire primary voting on Tuesday, when he finished sixth (A-1).

Where is the GOP bully who has terrorized New Jersey, and created crises on affordable housing, transportation funding, the state pension system and so many other important issues?

Garden State residents are hoping Christie will drop out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination, bringing our nightmare closer to an end.

Then, he can devote the nearly two years he has left in office to reaching a compromise with the state Legislature's majority Democrats.

Or, will he continue to wage war on the middle class, and add to his 500-plus vetoes with the support of The Record, including booster Charles Stile, the paper's chief political columnist? 

Local news? 

Today's paper is missing an editorial on what Christie's future should be, and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton signed off on an embarrassing typo in the first paragraph of a sensational crime story.

Crime and court news dominate the front of today's local-news section, including a huge photo of the "knockout suspect" and his high-priced defense attorney (L-1).

Pony tailed attorney Harvey Breite is a master at working the media, as you can see from the big, black headline that has absolutely no attribution -- a no-no in print journalism:

'Knockout' suspect

on anti-psychotic drugs

Is Breite also a doctor? 

Taking the word of a well-paid defense attorney, especially outside of court, just shows how desperate and gullible the paper's local editors are as they scramble to fill their thin section. 

Can you imagine the size of the retainer Breite demanded from the family of suspect Kristian Gonzales, 18, and his family?

It's probably on the order of $10,000 just to appear in court, with reams of legal bills to follow, if the case goes to trial.

Bad typo

Almost as embarrassing as that headline is the typo in the first, long and tortured paragraph of the story by Staff Writer Minjae Park:

A comma appears in the word "depic,ted," stopping readers dead.

How did this happen? 

Was Houlton, the production editor, asleep at her computer or did she go home early, leaving the production of the paper to her incompetent staff of news editors and proofers? 

The economic decision nearly a decade ago to move printing of The Record to Rockaway Township continues to haunt the newsroom in Woodland Park.

At the old Hackensack headquarters, the first good copies off of the press would be rushed up to the newsroom, and copy editors would leaf through the entire paper, looking for typos and other errors in headlines and text.

Then, the presses would be stopped and the corrections made.

Today, no one in the newsroom looks at the first copies, and readers apparently are the ones who see the errors first.

First in fat news

Staff Writer Elisa Ung, the paper's chief restaurant reviewer, was plump when she first came to The Record nearly a decade ago.

And it's no wonder in view of her obsession for dessert, as readers can see in today's lavishly promotional Better Living cover on chocolate (BL-1).

Appropriately, one bakery calls its $14 creation: "Death by Chocolate."

Readers looking for healthy food will be hard put to find it:

A chef's recipe on BL-2 calls for 3 pounds of jumbo lump crab meat combined with 25 ounces of cream cheese and an entire pound of Mascarpone cheese.

And clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson in Upper Saddle River recommends an Easy Banana Cake with lots of butter, sugar and cream cheese (BL-2).