Editors were blind to rot in Christie's inner circle

Playground murals in Hackensack, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Is it believable that The Record is only now learning about vindictiveness and dishonesty among members of Governor Christie's inner circle?

Since he took office in January 2010, the Woodland Park daily has been in Christie's corner, calling him a "rock star" and wildly "popular," and in at least the past year, reporting obsessively about his White House potential.

Naive editors

Today, however, a harshly worded editorial demands an explanation from Christie on how members of his staff and cronies on the Port Authority pulled off a politically inspired traffic jam in Democratic Fort Lee, supposedly without his knowledge (A-11).

The editorial writer appears to be shocked that Christie appointees "gleefully" disparaged "public officials, first responders, the media, schoolchildren and pretty much anyone else who might be inconvenienced by the closures" of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in early September.  

NPR connects dots

This morning, National Public Radio reported that many of Christie's closest aides and appointees once worked for him when he was U.S. attorney in Newark or came from the state Attorney General's Office.

Michael Drewniak, his foul-mouthed media liaison, also was spokesman for Christie the corruption-busting federal prosecutor.

Delayed outrage

Referring to Christie's Port Authority appointees and his Trenton aides, today's editorial notes:

"The pure joy David Wildstein, Bill Baroni, Bridget Anne Kelly and Michael Drewniak display in either being unhelpful or actually destructive is sickening." 

Equally sickening is how everyone from Editor Marty Gottlieb to the paper's columnists and reporters have been in love with a politician everyone else refers to as  the "GOP bully."

Uphill battle

This was especially evident during last year's gubernatorial campaign, when state Sen. Barbara Buono's campaign couldn't gain traction with The Record because her fund-raising lagged far behind Christie's.

This despite Buono, a Democrat, documenting high unemployment, a lagging state economy and Christie's continuing war on the middle class.

In a column today, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin sounds naive when he says:

"But what I do not get is why [Governor] Christie did not know sooner" about a plan among four members of his inner circle "to create a traffic nightmare in Fort Lee" (A-18).