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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/10/chris-christie-star-ledger-bridgegate-editorial
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| If a newspaper can't call Christie 'crazy', what's the point of an editorial board? | If a newspaper can't call Christie 'crazy', what's the point of an editorial board? |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| Yes, it can be embarrassing when you make the wrong bet. Think about Neville Chamberlain. Think about the Coalition of the Willing. Dear God, think about Betamax. | Yes, it can be embarrassing when you make the wrong bet. Think about Neville Chamberlain. Think about the Coalition of the Willing. Dear God, think about Betamax. |
| So you can imagine how poor Tom Moran feels. | So you can imagine how poor Tom Moran feels. |
| Moran is head of the editorial board at Newark’s Star-Ledger, which back on 20 October published an endorsement of incumbent New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in his bid for re-election. Truth be told, this wasn’t exactly a full-throated newspaper endorsement. Not even a recommendation, really. The editorial was something between a surrender to reality and a smear. | Moran is head of the editorial board at Newark’s Star-Ledger, which back on 20 October published an endorsement of incumbent New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in his bid for re-election. Truth be told, this wasn’t exactly a full-throated newspaper endorsement. Not even a recommendation, really. The editorial was something between a surrender to reality and a smear. |
| [Christie] is hostile to low-income families, raising their tax burden and sabotaging efforts to build affordable housing. He’s been a catastrophe on the environment, draining $1 billion from clean energy funds and calling a cease-fire in the state’s fight against climate change. | [Christie] is hostile to low-income families, raising their tax burden and sabotaging efforts to build affordable housing. He’s been a catastrophe on the environment, draining $1 billion from clean energy funds and calling a cease-fire in the state’s fight against climate change. |
| The governor’s claim to have fixed the state’s budget is fraudulent. New Jersey’s credit rating has dropped during his term, reflecting Wall Street’s judgment that he has dug the hole even deeper. He has no plan to finance transit projects and open space purchases now that he has nearly drained the dedicated funds he inherited from Gov. Jon Corzine. | The governor’s claim to have fixed the state’s budget is fraudulent. New Jersey’s credit rating has dropped during his term, reflecting Wall Street’s judgment that he has dug the hole even deeper. He has no plan to finance transit projects and open space purchases now that he has nearly drained the dedicated funds he inherited from Gov. Jon Corzine. |
| His ego is entertaining, but it’s done damage as well. By removing two qualified justices from the Supreme Court without good cause, he threatened the independence of judges at all levels, and provoked a partisan stalemate that has left two vacant seats on the high court. This was a power grab gone wrong.... | His ego is entertaining, but it’s done damage as well. By removing two qualified justices from the Supreme Court without good cause, he threatened the independence of judges at all levels, and provoked a partisan stalemate that has left two vacant seats on the high court. This was a power grab gone wrong.... |
| Our own view is that Christie is overrated. His spin is way ahead of his substance. | Our own view is that Christie is overrated. His spin is way ahead of his substance. |
| Woo-hoo! Vote for Christie! | Woo-hoo! Vote for Christie! |
| So who was this opponent of his, someone so vile as to not deserve an endorsement against such a power-grabbing egomaniac? Charles Manson? No, the Democratic candidate deemed by the Star-Ledger to be even worse for New Jersey than that pugnacious hack Chris Christie was a teachers’ union shill named Barbara Buono. And, no, she isn’t an ex-con with ties to al-Qaida. In the newspaper’s view, she “simply did not make the case” to the editorial board that she was any better than the ineffectual hooligan they half-heartedly endorsed. Let history record said case as a sterling moment for Newark’s charter schools and a very bad one for commuters in Fort Lee. | So who was this opponent of his, someone so vile as to not deserve an endorsement against such a power-grabbing egomaniac? Charles Manson? No, the Democratic candidate deemed by the Star-Ledger to be even worse for New Jersey than that pugnacious hack Chris Christie was a teachers’ union shill named Barbara Buono. And, no, she isn’t an ex-con with ties to al-Qaida. In the newspaper’s view, she “simply did not make the case” to the editorial board that she was any better than the ineffectual hooligan they half-heartedly endorsed. Let history record said case as a sterling moment for Newark’s charter schools and a very bad one for commuters in Fort Lee. |
| Thus was Tom Moran moved to apologize for the bum steer. In a column in Sunday’s paper, he prostrated himself before the readers he believes he let down. | Thus was Tom Moran moved to apologize for the bum steer. In a column in Sunday’s paper, he prostrated himself before the readers he believes he let down. |
| Yes, we knew Christie was a bully. But we didn’t know his crew was crazy enough to put people’s lives at risk in Fort Lee as a means to pressure the mayor. We didn’t know he would use Hurricane Sandy aid as a political slush fund. And we certainly didn’t know that Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer was sitting on a credible charge of extortion by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. | Yes, we knew Christie was a bully. But we didn’t know his crew was crazy enough to put people’s lives at risk in Fort Lee as a means to pressure the mayor. We didn’t know he would use Hurricane Sandy aid as a political slush fund. And we certainly didn’t know that Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer was sitting on a credible charge of extortion by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. |
| Plus, when he isn’t talking in circles at two-hour press conferences, Christie is just so refreshingly candid. | Plus, when he isn’t talking in circles at two-hour press conferences, Christie is just so refreshingly candid. |
| The bridge fiasco and its fallout is just the latest example of newspaper editorial boards getting out of the endorsement business altogether. Papers in Atlanta, Tuscaloosa and Chicago not only don’t wish to be held accountable for bad calls anymore, they don’t want to alienate readers by seeming partisan. As Kevin Riley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution told me last fall, “Our readers do not want us to pick sides.” | The bridge fiasco and its fallout is just the latest example of newspaper editorial boards getting out of the endorsement business altogether. Papers in Atlanta, Tuscaloosa and Chicago not only don’t wish to be held accountable for bad calls anymore, they don’t want to alienate readers by seeming partisan. As Kevin Riley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution told me last fall, “Our readers do not want us to pick sides.” |
| A sad concession to the marketplace, that, and a pathetic renunciation of newspapers’ civic duty to help citizens perform their civic duty. On all sorts of issues, editorials by definition pick sides. And unlike the partisan drivel that fills cable TV, the internet and especially the columns next to them, newspaper editorials are most often informed by experience and honest argument, not ideology and sophistry. Of course it’s worth noting that the rigorous and deliberate New York Times editorial page, which turns out to be either Hell on Earth or possibly just a little predictable, took a pass on the New Jersey governor’s race. | |
| So hand it to the Star-Ledger for having the guts to fulfill its mission, no matter how ambivalent the choice, no matter how agonizing the process, no matter how old the tradition. And hand it to Moran once again for owning up to the politics of poor choices. Fittingly enough, the retraction was as backhanded as the original endorsement, ultimately retreating to the lesser-of-two-weevils calculus that led the paper to fall in behind the incumbent during the election. | |
| Moran went on to imagine a scenario, some 31 months from now, supposing Sen. Rand Paul and Christie were frontrunners in the New Jersey primary for the GOP presidential nomination. | Moran went on to imagine a scenario, some 31 months from now, supposing Sen. Rand Paul and Christie were frontrunners in the New Jersey primary for the GOP presidential nomination. |
| “At the risk of repeating a mistake,” he wrote, no doubt begrudgingly, “I’d pick Christie in that primary, even now. And if you think that makes some sense, then you understand how excruciating the endorsement process can be.” | “At the risk of repeating a mistake,” he wrote, no doubt begrudgingly, “I’d pick Christie in that primary, even now. And if you think that makes some sense, then you understand how excruciating the endorsement process can be.” |