Christie is wrong for New Jersey, wrong for the nation

The Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan, above and below, was a source of frustration for North Jersey commuters years before The Record's editors took notice. Only angry letters to the editor roused the paper's transportation writers out of their deep slumber and distracted them from their driver-oriented coverage. Now, the editors are ignoring the problems of NJ Transit rail commuters, who scramble to find rush-hour seats on crowded trains.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In the last few months, The Record's editors had an epiphany:

Governor Christie's mean-spirited policies in New Jersey will have an impact on the 2016 election, if he wins the Republican presidential nomination.

But today's Political Stile column is largely a rehash of which Christie policies "are popular with conservative voters in key primary states" (A-1).

Those conservative voters meant little in the last presidential contest, when President Obama easily won election to a second term, and they won't help the GOP bully, in the unlikely event he is his party's nominee.

That will especially be true, if Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, heads what could be the first all-female White House ticket.

Who needs another Bush or a Christie in the White House?

Jackson stumbles 

A correction on A-2 today notes Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson was wrong in his unusually dull Page 1 column on Monday about his central premise -- how often a U.S. Senate ethics rule has been applied.

How embarrassing. This amounts to a "never mind" from the arrogant reporter, who claimed Rule 23 is "virtually toothless" and "has never been used."

Even the copy editor was fooled into writing this wrong front-page headline:

Senate's
strict rule 
on donors
never used

This Jackson correction and all of the errors readers find in the Road Warrior column makes you wonder about the soundness of the reporting and editing at the Woodland Park daily.

Mercedes in Montvale

In a letter to the editor, Montvale resident Kurt F. Kron says Mercedes-Benz USA is paying about $917,000 in property taxes on about 37 acres in his town -- "a 31 percent discount even after revaluation" (A-8).

In view of the official panic over rumors the U.S. arm of the German automaker might leave for the South, Kron suggests financial incentives should also be offered to keep residents in Montvale.