My thinking is, just what is Christie supposed to do? He needs certain Federal resources and waivers. His state was just hit by a hurricane that communities there have no experience in dealing with, (unlike a state like Florida). The damage was dramatic. The emotional pain of the folks and towns that lost everything was even more dramatic.
Christie needed to strike for Federal Largess while the iron was hot. In a few days the cameras will be gone and so will the attention given the area. Communities like Seaside and a whole host of others will be relegated to the local news.
It will be a very long, years, if not decades long process to bring back what was lost. In a sense, the folks that lost their homes due to fire in Breezy Point New York, have it made. They will be covered, but those that lost their homes due to flooding will not. This will wipe out a great many families and communities.
So Christie gave the President a photo op. He made Obama look presidential. Well, Obama SHOULD go to the stricken areas. Christie needed to stress the assets he needed for his state right now. He had a chance to bend the Federal Ear. Hopefully he used that time well.
But now Obama owns the hurricane after the inevitable gov’t response. Afterall, there is only so much a President can do. And, perhaps Christie gave Obama the rope to hang himself. After praising the President, everyone that is cold and hungry and without shelter can look to Obama for the cause of their misery. After all Obama took ownership.
As a reporter many years ago and in a different life, I met Bush the Elder in Santa Cruz and Mrs Quayle in Watsonville after the Quake of 1989. It is important for the folks in Washington D.C. get out and see for themselves, what nature hath wrought. It was these people that voted them in office (perhaps), it was these communities that gave the mantle of power to the office holder.
It didn't seen to change Kathleen Blanco's public opinion of George W Bush
“My thinking is, just what is Christie supposed to do? He needs certain Federal resources and waivers.”
We the People do not bow to elected officials. Fema money is not BOs to hand out; Bush knew this, which is why he gave NO $ even though the gov’t officials there did the opposite of bowing to him. BO is not Mellon or Carnegie or even Trump. It is not his money and not his choice and when he takes it as such as he did to R Perry in Texas and pulled funding form the fires it is corruption.
“His state was just hit by a hurricane that communities there have no experience in dealing with, (unlike a state like Florida). The damage was dramatic.”
Ugh! It is half shoreline, not counting the islands and the Bays. Bay Head was overrun with 12 to 18 inches of water in homes from Barnegat Bay. And many have flood insurance. In any case, anyone there, especially the gov., who does NOT anticipate such an event is silly.
Florida does not own hurricaines, nor does Texas, La, SO Carolina.
Two of my New Yorker sisters are named after hurricaines which hit in the 50s and 60s.
Read up on the Hurricaine of 1938 which flooded Providence RI after ravaging LI.
CC looked like a CHILD in his walkabout with Obama....A FAT KID in white tennis shoes kissing up to the FORMER child. He actually made Obama seem like an adult.
YES!
you speak from thought and wisdom and big picture.
many others speaking from emotion and not looking at immediate need of all those in dire need in storm effected areas.
yes mitt will win, but nj , nyc, and the other states without power still and major damage need help now, can’t wait for jan 20th for help to come with inaug of mitt.
I back christie’s reasoning, though not all his words - a bit over the top for my likling, but he did his bidding for help for those in nj some of which strongly effected are my relatives.
This is a justification? That statement sums up everything that is eternally effed up in our country. Christy is just a morbidly obese, uncouth, vitriolic opportunist. If Corey Booker kicks his ample ass in the next election, it will be because Christy alienated a lot of conservatives by delivering that French kiss of a photo-op to Obama. Liberals are lauding him for it now....but they will never vote for him.