|
Fred Snowflack is the editor of the Daily Record, the hometown paper of US Attorney Chris Christie. Today Fred ran an unattributed editorial about the $52 million no-bid contract Christie gave to his former boss, John Ashcroft.
Christie, who has done a great job putting political crooks in jail, has earned the privilege of getting the benefit of the doubt. Ashcroft's firm may do a great job for a price that will be much less than $52 million.
May do a great job? Sure, so could a ton of other lawfirms that didn't give Christie a job. And the only evidence Snowflack has that this "will be much less than $52 million" is Chris Christie's word, and that's what is in doubt right now.
Point two on the $52 million is that Snowflack knows government contracts -- particularly no-bid contracts with little external oversight -- usually run over budget not under. Oh, unless it's Super Christie handing out the contract. Because we trust him.
This is about the most blatant case of misdirection I've seen since the Daily Record refused to reveal which story Chris Christie told them about his near-miss in the US Attorney firings.
Snowflack ignores the vast body of evidence out there that Christie bought his job, something that really should be noted when you are talking about sending $52 million contracts to the guy who gave Christie the job. Imagine if a Democrat donated $500K to the state and national party, got a job worth hundreds of thousands, and then gave million dollar no-bid contracts to high-profile Dems? There would be a bloodbath, but for Super Christie he gets a pass.
Snowflack completely ignores that the Bush Justice Department is under a number of investigations into how it used its powers for partisan and personal gain, and that the move to a partisan use of federal policing powers happened under John Ashcroft -- the very guy who got Christie's $52 million contract.
Snowflack also ignores the tendency -- noted on Blue Jersey in the past and on PoliticsNJ PolitickerNJ today the strange tendency of subpoenas, leaks and press releases to come out at times opportune for Christie and the Republicans and damaging to the Democrats.
Snowflack further ignores the Christie hissy fit when a Democrat put a temporary block on the appointment of Stu Abner to the state Supreme Court while totally ignoring a Morris County Republican Senator doing the same thing for the Morris County Prosecutor.
The fact is that Christie doesn't have a clean record anywhere but in the newspapers and editorial pages. He no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, if he ever did. His office has made a significant dent in the massive problem of public corruption in our state, but also has made a significant dent in the non-partisan image of the US Attorney's office.
|
