The usual right-wing suspects rally to Chris Christie's defense, in the expected ways: it's not as bad as Benghazi, or the IRS scandal. They're right, of course.
Well, other than the fact that someone very very close to Mr Christie, close enough to fit in his pre-banding pants along with him now, deliberately ordered a retaliatory catastrophe that cost at least one life. About that, there's not the slightest doubt. The only unanswered question is what did Christie know and when did he know it? Is it credible that such a high-level deliberate action was done without his knowledge?
The similarity to the IRS and Benghazi is that they both share made-up coverage from the right: in the case of the bridge deal, the made-up coverage is that it's no big deal, and in the case of IRS/Benghazi is that it is. We know that, too.
Investigations have revealed that the IRS wasn't targeting right wing groups more than left; and, in fact, it only denied tax-exempt status to lefty groups. It was following the law; the law that bans politically active groups from tax exempt status.
And unless you believe that Obama or his administration deliberately caused the Benghazi attacks, or deliberately prevented rescue attempts (you'd not be alone, by a long shot, among Foxophiles), there's no comparison there, either. Tragic as it was.
When the first suggestions appeared claiming IRS malfeasance, I thought (and wrote) that if it was true, it was a very bad thing. Had it been true, I'd have continued to say it. Unlike the RWS™ and their true believers, though, when the truth came out, it was over for me. Same with Benghazi: investigation after investigation, by government sources, by newspapers, have found no evidence of deliberate action to cause or foment or ignore it by our government. Poor communication? Possibly. Deliberate actions causing major problems, a la the GWB (pick your initials: it's true in the case of the George Washington bridge, and of our previous president)? Not.
So, yet again, we see how the right wing of our country, via its leaders anyway, operates. No fact is worth considering when it controverts your message. No lie is too big to tell; no distraction too irrelevant to place into the dialog. No false equivalence too much of a reach to spew and to spread.
I can't speculate why they've left their senses to this extent: is it because they know their ideas have never worked and they can't think of any alternatives that aren't the same as liberals', which have? Who knows? But one thing is sure. They do this stuff with the confidence that they've successfully endumbed their sheep to the point that they'll believe whatever they're told. This whole bridge thing, Karl Rove tells them, proves that Christie is exactly what we want in a president. He's got the balls, Fox "analysts" pronounce, to screw people. Yes, yes, they say. Yes. Yes. Oh great political mind. Oh fair and balanced news source. Yes. Yes. And yes.
The effectiveness of this Machiavellian brilliance is matched only by its destructiveness.
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