As I said before, facts don’t seem to matter anymore in the Republican primary race and fact-checkers must feel that they are crying in the wind because the candidates now just flat out lie, not bothering to provide even a veneer of plausibility. But even within that fog of lies, Chris Christie stands out for his brazenness, giving even Carly Fiorina, whose supreme disregard for facts was a wonder to behold, a run for her money.
Chris Christie has been battling the image created by his praise and hug of president Obama in the wake of hurricane Sandy just before the 2012 elections. Some have placed part of the blame for Mitt Romney’s loss on that and he has struggled to shake himself free of the charge that he is some kind of closet liberal by attacking Obama with great viciousness. In Thursday’s debate, in response to Marco Rubio’s charges that he had supported liberal positions, Christie looked straight at the camera and said that Rubio was wrong, he had never supported Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, had never donated to Planned Parenthood, that the Common Core no longer existed in New Jersey, and he had never supported gun control.
All these turn out to be blatantly false and the opposite had been reported in the New Jersey Star-Ledger at the time.
Faced with his lying, Christie attacked the newspaper for lying about him in that article. But the editor of the paper said that Christie had raised no objections at the time and the author’s article turns out to be Christie’s current spokesperson who was a reporter for the paper at that time. Awkward!
The Republican party does not even pretend that facts matter anymore. Hugh Hewitt is a conservative media personality who has been part of the debate moderators and he says that “Fact-checking doesn’t matter in these things. What matters is personality and aura and your command presence.”
So Republicans will choose the person with the best ‘aura’ and ‘command presence’ even if that person is a flat-out liar.
That’s democracy, folks!
That’s democracy, folks!
No, it isn’t.
Well, this isn’t really a great example considering how terrible Christie is doing in the polls.
doublereed@2,
Clearly he’s not lying enough.
The Republicans should and perhaps will choose the person who they think will get the most votes. That’s democracy.
Suggesting that factual accuracy is more important than presentation is to wildly overestimate the intelligence of the average voter or the importance that voter places on facts. THAT is democracy. Remember, fully half your electorate are of lower than average intelligence.
1) What do you mean by “The Republicans”? Are you talking about the masses of party members, or are you talking about the party leadership?
2) Do you have any actual evidence that they concern themselves with “who they think will get the most votes,” rather than the candidate who appeals to them personally?
Because I suspect you are just making stuff up.
Thing is, when it comes to being electable and appealing to the mainstream that basic humanity and willingness to see teh good in (& work with) the other side of politics should be one of Christie’s greatest assests and something he stands by and promotes. Not disowns.
Its one of the things and moments of Chris Christie that this distant (but fairly closely following becoz y’know it matters to the whole world) Aussie respects and appreciates most about him.
Would be really idealistically nice if Christie could build on that moment and image and facts and say, ” Yeah, fuck the worst of the extremists in the Base; this is the reality and, yes I will embrace the good Obama does for me and my state and my people. Oh & being pragmatic and working for the best realistic results I can get, yeah, I’m not ashamed of that -quite the reverse.”
But no.
Not going to happen is it?
I’d like to see Chris Christie win the R-nom over the dropkick nightmares like Cruz, Trump and “Mr Frothymix” (yeah I know but he’s still technically in it so I can still, technically, ooze er.. I mean use that joke ja?) Liar and flawed as he is, Christie sure beats their alternatives with the possible exception of Kasick don’t he?
But, yep, his undies are burning and that’s not only painful but sad and very obvious.
Some have placed part of the blame for Mitt Romney’s loss on that ..
Really? Have they not even once looked at the qualities (or lack thereof) of Mittens Rmoney himself? Did they ever think such a horrible nasty unappealing tool could win?
Typo fix :
Hell, who agrees with anybody on everything
Is what I meant natch.
Poty’s sake it’d be good to edit these comments here. Sigh.
@Reginald Selkirk: I mean the same people as were meant in the original post, when it said:
And I don’t need evidence of what they concern themselves with to opine on what I think they (and I quote) “should and perhaps will” do.
The GOP being okay with liars wouldn’t bother me if the GOP wasn’t constantly proclaiming that they are focused on “character” and weren’t so quick to point fingers at others.
For the GOP the willingness to lie, but presumably not cheat or kill, is a badge of honor.
Given what happened to Gore in Florida I’m not so sure about the cheating thing.
Also, given the number of times the right has accused someone on the left of doing something, only to have it come out that the right was doing exactly what they were accusing others of, but more deeply and often, and taking the Vince Foster accusations into account, perhaps we shouldn’t too quickly discount the chance that the GOP may has a few bodies hidden away.
Ironically a willingness to do despicable things for a cause, and using that as a measure of commitment, and so the rightness of the cause, was raised by more than one Muslim supporting ISIS. One fairly representative proponent claimed that Islam was clearly better than Christianity because Muslims were willing to kill to proclaim their faith.
I’m thinking … Great … now we can get into a pissing match with people competing to see who can prove the superiority of their faith by committing the most egregious atrocity in the name of their God.
And every man-jack of them, GOP and religious extremists alike, will tell you very loudly about the moral superiority of their position. Moral lepers rubbing shit into their hair while loudly proclaiming that their hands are cleaner than yours.
Some days I just want to cancel my membership in the human race.