A fading Christie lacks the temperament to be president

On Saturday, The Record reported twice on the front page that Hackensack University Medical Center's mobile treatment unit for potential Ebola cases is "behind" a McDonald's on Essex and South Newman streets in Hackensack. But that's not the case. The hospital-owned lot is actually between the McDonald's and NJ Transit's Essex Street Station.

In today's paper, a front-page photo caption says the mobile treatment unit is "near a McDonald's." City officials want the hospital to move the unit, above. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"Sit down and shut up."

With those words, Governor Christie dismissed another protester, even though everyone but The Record thinks the GOP bully has bungled the recovery two long years after Superstorm Sandy (A-3).

"Why isn't he [Christie] in Ship Bottom today?" protester Jim Keady of Spring Lake said. "Why isn't he in Ortley Beach, where people aren't back in their homes? He's got to finish the job."

Keady held up a sign -- "STAY IN NJ & FINISH THE JOB" -- an apparent reference to Christie's travels raising money for conservative politicians like himself who have been waging war on the middle and working classes. 

Well, is there really any chance Christie will even get the nomination, given his far-from-presidential temperament and his low approval ratings in New Jersey?

If he can't veto bills, he just tells his critics to shut up and sit down.

Voter apathy

He was elected to a second term last November, but the turnout was the lowest for any gubernatorial election in state history.

Christie won, because droves of voters stayed home.

In fact, none of the election coverage so far has addressed how much voters are turned off by the partisanship in New Jersey and Washington, and the Woodland Park daily's relentless focus on politics.

Take today's Page 1 column on the challenge to Rep. Scott Garret, R-Wantage, in the 5th Congressional District, which includes Bergen County (A-1).

Columnist Charles Stile and other staffers give the most coverage and credibility to the candidate who raises the most money, but never say why that is so important.

And this year, I haven't seen one analysis of the distorted and false attack ads big campaign money buys.

Even such an eminence as Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson left out damaging information about Garrett in the first front-page piece on the challenge posed by Democrat Roy Cho, an attorney who lives in Hackensack.

What The Record reported as Garrett's initial opposition to federal Sandy aid is now being called  "raising questions about the potential for wasteful spending" (A-11).

Wednesday's paper

High school football has such a grip on Editor Martin Gottlieb that he ran a two-year-old story about a Paramus Catholic player and his mother all over Wednesday's front page.

Gottlieb again led the front page with lots more on Ebola, even though not a single case has been confirmed in New Jersey.

Two more embarrassing corrections appeared on A-2.

In Wednesday's Better Living section, clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson continues to recommend recipes that turn healthy ingredients into artery clogging nightmares (BL-2).

Her Lobster Frittata includes five whole eggs, a half-cup of cream, 2 ounces of cream cheese and 4 ounces of Swiss cheese.

Jackson should visit a hospital cardiac ward, and talk to patients who have had heart attacks from clogged arteries before she pushes another unhealthy recipe.

Third look

How can Road Warrior John Cichowski be so wrong about so many things in column after column, escaping even basic fact checking by his assignment editor, the copy desk and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton?

In last Friday's column, which I discussed on Tuesday, Cichowski was relating the history of George Washington Bridge construction.

Then, the clueless transportation writer said:

"Until the Holland Tunnel was completed in Hoboken in 1927, the main method for drivers to get their cars across the Hudson River was by ferry...."

Of course, the New Jersey entrance to the Holland Tunnel is in Jersey City, not Hoboken.

And, of course, no correction appeared.