| So our good friends at New Jersey's right wing blogs write a new post every time we put up one of our Chris Christie pieces lamenting how partisan and abusive we are. Of course we are only laying out facts and figures and making connections because Christie is busting liberals! It's a good defense, if not a reflection of reality. For instance, we've noted a few times that the Christmas Tree investigation stops at 2002, the year Chris Christie took office and Democrats took over the state government after almost a decade of Republican rule. Republicans were just as apt to add Christmas Tree items to the budget when they were in charge, but strangely enough the state statute of limitations wore off on those without a peep of investigation during five years of Christie's term. The state, mind you. The federal statutes, which Christie works under, are still in operation for those Christmas Tree items. But only Democrats have been subpoenaed. Not one of these guys from a Record article printed today: Republican state Sen. Robert Singer of Ocean County is a longtime executive at Community and Kimball medical centers in that county. The hospitals, part of the seven-hospital St. Barnabas Health Care System, received several special appropriations between 2000 and 2002, when Republicans were still in power in the Senate. ...
So he's an executive at the hospitals, and he's getting special grants from the state that other hospitals don't get? Where's Steve Lonegan when you need him? Republican Assemblyman David Wolfe of Ocean County also is married to the director of a non-profit that has received special state assistance. In 1997, Carol Wolfe helped found and became the unpaid chairwoman of Homes Now, a non-profit that provides affordable housing services and a women's shelter. She became the paid executive director of the organization in 2001. In 1999, the group received a special appropriation of $500,000 to help build its shelter in Brick Township. Assemblyman Wolfe emphasized that the expenditure was completely transparent and, in fact, advertised by his office in a press release. He also stressed that his wife was not a paid employee of the group until two years later.
So Wolfe's wife was not paid by the group until after he secured a half million dollars for the group? And this is the line he's using to defend himself? Pretty much we think that the Christmas Tree investigation is a fishing expedition, and that Christie is following the Bryant investigation to it's illogical extreme. We also don't think that there is really any fire for these two Republicans. But the fact is Christie is intentionally focusing on Democratic Christmas Tree items and sending subpoenas that the newspapers and PoliticsNJ find out about them within the hour, while newspapers can find examples like these two Republican legislators from the same county with semmingly no effort. Again, the result of Christie's choice is damage to the Democratic Party and a commensurate benefit to the Republican Party. That cannot be denied, even by folks who won't entertain the idea that Christie is partisan. |
