Irresponsible Governors, Part One

Oh dear! The left wing mainstream media is at it again! They are emphasizing recent actions of two east coast governors and making them look bad! What a shame! Whatever will we do?

I’ll tell what this slightly left of center blogger will do! (Surprise! Yes, I consider myself slightly left of center.) I’ll pile on and throw my two cents in! I happen to agree with the mainstream media that these recent actions are worthy of scrutiny. Besides, I’m almost certain that it’s just a coincidence that both governors are Republican.

The first governor who is being fairly maligned by the media is New Jersey’s Chris Christie. His cost cutting measures at the expense of public education and his “shoot-from-the-hip” style of public discourse since he took office has made him a darling to conservatives, but a huge hemorrhoid to nearly everyone else. And by huge, I am, of course, referring to Christie’s expansive physical girth; unbecoming on any official influencing public policy even in times of economic prosperity.

At a recent town hall meeting, Christie threw his weight around again. Confronted with a question from a former Navy SEAL and veteran advocate at the Roebling event, Christie lost his cool and proclaimed the man an idiot. Full disclosure: I have not seen the video of the confrontation, and my knowledge is solely based on published news reports admittedly from the mainstream media. So I am taking Christie’s explanation of the event at face value.

So I believe Christie when he says the war vet interrupted him while he answered the question. To be fair, shouting down officials as they explain themselves is a trick liberals learned from the conservative tea party constituency. Yet I will allow that Christie’s initial reaction was truly a human one; if someone is interrupting while you’re trying to make a point, then you too would shed the veneer of politeness and react accordingly, or angrily, take your pick.

So a few days pass and the mainstream media wallows in the coverage of the incident. Everyone has a chance to cool down and the governor weighs in again on what happened. However, instead of being conciliatory and chalking the incident up to an unfortunate exchange in the name of public debate, he adds on to his previous characterization of the war vet as an idiot, by calling him a jerk. Some critics used Christie’s remarks as an example of his unprofessionalism. On this point, I’ll agree with the critics.

The name-calling in which Christie engages is childish and sets a bad example. There, I said it! It’s unbecoming of any alleged grown-up like Christie. Such actions can have an adverse affect on those deeply impressionable members of our society, and no, when I use the term deeply impressionable, I’m not referring to Fox News watchers necessarily.

I’m referring in this instance to America’s children, who can be easily influence by events they see displayed in the media. Some children may see Christie’s action as similar to those displayed by the school yard bully they encounter every day. Worse, they may perceive that this kind of behavior is okay. The problem is kids have greater access to guns and other weapons today than they did 20 years ago. Some of these kids in that span of time have used their guns against those they perceived as bullies who used words like idiot and jerk for the purpose of intimidation.

Okay, so my final statement on this subject might be an example of overwrought, bleeding heart liberal extremist hyperbole, but...I dood it!

Seriously, Governor Christie, didn’t you learn any lessons from the massacre at Columbine?

(Thank you for reading! To be continued...)