The Chris Christie I Know And Love

Chris Christie once was driving the wrong way on a one way street, hit a man on a motorcycle, not only talked his way out of a ticket for the driving infraction, but pulled strings to get a police escort to take him ten blocks to a meeting before the ambulance even took the motorcyclist to the hospital.

That's who this guy is.

So I'm not surprised that the Austerity Governor still thinks there is no problem with taking a state helicopter to his son's baseball game, staying fora few innings, then taking the helicopter back to Princeton so he could meet with Republican Party donors who are trying to get him to run for president.

Sure, he finally ponied up over $2000 for the helicopter ride to the game (the state GOP picked up the price of the flight back to Princeton), but he was unrepentant about the brouhaha.

As usual with Christie, blame was displaced onto other people - in this case, critics who are seeking political advantage over him when he was just trying to be a good father and take in his son's game before he had to go back to attend a meeting (you ever notice how he falls back on the "father act" when criticized? He did the same when he fled the state before the December 26 blizzard last year.) He even called one Democratic lawmaker who had criticized the helicopter use a "jerk".

Uh, huh - except that the meeting was not state business, it Republican Party business. And it has since been revealed that Christie has taken the helicopter to his son's baseball game before. It is true that so far Christie has used the state helicopter less than previous Jersey governors, but I think the problem for Christie here is that while he calls for "sacrifice" from the citizens of Jersey, he doesn't seem to be sacrificing himself.

If Christie wanted to go to his son's game, then he should have gone - and skipped the meeting with the political donors. Or delayed that meeting by a few hours. Or met with them at the game over hot dogs.

But instead he took the helicopter to the game, flew it back to the donor meeting and went ballistic when questioned about the helicopter use, name-called critics and just generally acted like the "jerk" he claims his critics are.

That's who this man is, that's who he will be if he runs for president.

I can't imagine somebody like this could handle the scrutiny of a presidential campaign without imploding.