I’m a little confused by this. Generally speaking when you throw someone under the bus and you want them to play along, you add as much padding to the process as possible. That doesn’t appear to be the Chris Chrisitie way. The main fallperson turns out to be former deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly. And the “report” prepared by Christie’s lawyer not only places all the criminal liability on her (along with David Wildstein). It also goes out of its way to say that she is, to put it bluntly, emotionally unstable and loose.
The whole thing is vaguely reminiscent of David Brock’s notorious line that Anita Hill was “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.” (If that line is before your time, Brock long since recanted, repented and a bunch else.)
As you can see, over there to the right we have what’s labeled a “Sponsored Message” from PhRMA. As I mentioned yesterday, they’re sponsoring a new section of IdeaLab we launched this week. In the ad industry and journalism there’s been a lot discussion lately of what’s variously called “sponsored content,” “native advertising,” “integrated advertising,” etc. It all comes down to the same basic proposition: advertising that isn’t just your normal picture boxes and videos but text – at length writing that makes arguments and arguments that in the nature of things advocate for the advertiser or organization who bought the ad. But buzzwords tend to confuse things. So let me explain exactly what we’re doing.
Chris Christie started off his news conference this afternoon with some actual news: David Samson, a longtime ally and one of his appointees to the Port Authority, had just resigned. The announcement didn’t seem to trouble Christie, though. In fact, so far in the news conference, we’ve seen the governor smiling, laughing and berating reporters. The old Christie is back. He’s very pleased with his own self-exoneration.
Chris Christie plans to hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m. ET after releasing his self-exoneration. Watch it live.
It’s almost as if the BridgeGate report commissioned by Chris Christie’s office was one big PR stunt that ignored vital questions and lets him pivot toward 2016.
Anti-abortion advocates are posting the names, addresses and photographs of a pro-choice activist, journalist and doctor. TPM Cafe writers David S. Cohen and Krysten Connon wonder, when do we start taking this kind of harassment seriously?
Robin Marty has a great look at the infighting happening in the anti-abortion movement in Georgia, where the state affiliate of National Right to Life is so extreme it might lose its ties to the national organization.
Coming off his multiple felony indictments for campaign finance fraud involved involving both his estranged wife and then mistress, disgraced and defenestrated former Christian college President Dinesh D’souza has a new film coming out. And to promote it, he’s come out with this ‘parody’ version that “Between Two Ferns” interview President Obama did a few weeks ago with Zach Galifianakis
I just got it in a PR email about (though I just realized we wrote it up at LiveWire yesterday) and it is clearly meant to be funny. But … well, just watch …
Chris Christie swears he doesn’t remember having a conversation about the bridge lane closures, but he does remember the conversation had nothing to do with getting back at some mayor.