New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) spoke to NBC's Matt Lauer this morning about the response effort to Hurricane Sandy, and towards the end of the interview, he offered some noteworthy praise for the federal response to the crisis.
Christie offered a fairly detailed assessment of conditions in the Garden State, including the fact that there have been three reported fatalities thus far. But when Lauer asked about the efficacy of the federal response, the governor said it's been "great," noting that he spoke directly to President Obama at midnight and FEMA again this morning. Christie said Obama "has been outstanding."
The governor made similar remarks on CBS, saying, "Cooperation from the president of the United States has been outstanding. He deserves great credit."
What's more, Christie told reporters yesterday that he'd spoken to Obama, "and he told me that if, at any point over the next 48 hours, I was not getting something from the federal government that I should call him directly at the White House and that he was going to be there. And I should just not worry about dealing with anybody else, call him. So I appreciate that call from the president. It was very proactive. And I appreciate that type of leadership."
I think it's fair to say Christie is not a fan of Obama's when it comes to politics and ideology. It's what makes this praise, a week before the election, that much more striking.
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Perhaps he's afraid that he might not get a chance to run in 2016 afterall...better talk Obama up!
Obama made the criticism of Bush that the great failure of leadership was that the event could draw the people together, because partisanship fades in crisis. Obama demonstrated that and Christie could have said nothing so it was not for political effect.
I was referring to the lost opportunity to take a united nation after 9-11, charting a middle path between political extremes. Both Christie and Obama are in love with that kind of leadership- the eisenhower kind. These are the moderate leaders who plod along through politics charting safe and practical courses rather than make bold initiatives required for decisive response to a threat.
A Patton would stand up and use the bully pulpit to confront the nation as mother nature is confronting New York. She was barred from the debates but she will speak her mind. She speaks loudly to capital of the media establishment, but she sees that it is futile- they merely drone on and on, transfixed by the spectacle of the immediate, mistaking the urgent for the important.
The right has succeeded in disqualifying any discussion of extreme weather and climate change. It is no different than the group think in the lead up to the Iraq war, where there was a disqualification of consideration of points of view outside the Neocon's framing of the "WMD" threat in Iraq. No one wanted to be seen as being a disloyal American, and not standing in unity with the President. Editors and exec producers knew these stories would not play well, and they were right- The public was not receptive to the idea that it was a giant con job and that Bush II really didn't care what the facts were. The immediate- the urgency of a Nuclear or Bio threat in the hands of terrorists would drive the people to follow unquestioningly.
Citizens do not see a malevolent Bin Laden behind extreme weather, and we have no leader who will frame the immediate in terms of the importance of this challenge. Because this challenge is being aggressively ignored by the world, this will result in a calamity greater than the apocalypse that we feared from Hussein or Bin Laden. It will result in tens if not hundreds of millions of deaths due to the wars attending mass migrations when once rich lands no longer produce food or are inundated.
It is a question of leadership. To face a blitzkrieg in 1939, do you want an Eisenhower or a Patton? Cautious consensus building was how the French generals responded. There would be no bold initiatives against the Germans. Today, much of the public believe that climate change is a phoney war. Even in utter defeat the populace did not respond to the reality of the situation preferring to follow a puppet who would put a happy Vichy face on the evil so that they could go on with a semblance of life as usual.
Will anyone dare to do a story on high lattitude blocks and the relationship to climate change? No. The excuses are the same as in the Iraq run up. There is no hard evidence, no one wants to hear that story, it appears too speculative and immersed in complex details that will tune out the viewership.
It's not just the abdication of responsibility by centrist "leaders" like Christie and Obama. It is the abdication of responsibility by journalists.
August 23, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina struck and nearly 2,000 died and New Orleans did not recover for years. George Bush, as you recall, outsourced the recovery to companies that sent bottled water all over the country but not to New Orleans.
October 29, 2012 - Hurricane Sandy strikes the East Coast. 26 deaths from the storm reported in the early aftermath and stranded persons are rescued. On October 30, bus service is restored in New York City and the bridges are reopened. The water in the subways may mean the subway will remain closed for a few days.
Governor Christie provides an honest assessment of the President's leadership in this crisis. Obama has organized FEMA into an effective aid in this and other natural disasters. Christie praises the work of FEMA and the Obama response.
Mitt Romney wants to outsource FEMA to the states and, as he says, preferably, to the private sector. Romney asks people to bring canned goods to a campaign rally and asks for donations to the Red Cross.
@JohnMesserly
Jobs, jobs, Jobs ???
Will this not fix everything?
Great post John.
I had not heard of high latitude blocks. Found an interesting article.
Again, great post, last paragraph is perfect.
Thank you and keep posting.
Lung cancer is the hidden cost of believing the Bull that R.J. Reynolds tells you about cancer science. Extreme weather like Hurricane Sandy and the drought in the midwest is the hidden cost of believing Exxon's Bull about climate science.
The decisive point with cigarettes was not that the public appreciated the scientific details behind the clinical finding of the causal relation between cigarettes and lung cancer.
It was that the US government stated that fact on the side of cigarette packs, and that it eventually became accepted as truth despite the advertising campaign by people who had a vested interest in the rampant burning of tobacco.
The Right relishes every opportunity to convince journalists to veer away from stating such facts. All they need to do is politicize the facts so that presenting facts can then be painted as political advocacy, not journalism.
In the same way that it is accurate to say cigarettes cause Lung Cancer, it is accurate to state that Exxon caused Hurricane Sandy. They and their brethren in the other fossil fuel industries have an immense financial stake in acceleration of the generation of green house gases. These interests are spending staggering amounts of money to defeat Obama. They also have immense intellectual capital invested in an economic community that supports their psychotic behavior.
The Economist magazine gives Obama an F for Investing in Green energy and high speed rail. To their thinking, intervention is forbidden. The market is wise, and "Industrial Policy" is folly. Their scorn is that these investments were a "predictable sinkhole for taxpayer money". (The Economist)
The reality is that the country will realize that it is exceptionally uneconomical to have Hurricane Sandys once a month, and that a 300% tax on gasoline to recover the costs needed for disaster relief is simply adding the hidden cost of burning that fossil fuel. At the intellectual level, the neoliberals at The Economist will be seen for the apologists for market fundamentalism that they are.
Market forces are accelerating climate change, not slowing it. A sensible strategy would be to use market forces to slow climate change. We can start by forcing fossil fuel companies to pick up the tab for these disasters and include the projected cost of a 3% rise in global temperature into the price of gas at the pump.
If there is no causal relationship between burning these fuels and these extreme weather events, then the surcharge is unfair. If the causation is there, then it is not just fair, but it is our responsibility to charge what the real cost of burning that fuel is.
Otherwise we would be engaging in the socialistic subsidizing of a politically preferred industry.
And THAT would be cronyism.
Maybe that's a start. Put a warning label at the pump, complete with a picture of the body of a child killed in a flood during an extreme weather event.
Warning: burning fossil fuels kills children.
Sure the GOP will repeal such a requirement, and it will see saw, but after a while they will give up the challenges just as the Tobacco industry did.
And through shear repetition, people will begin to feel some of the genuine guilt they bear when they prefer to buy a gas rather than electricity for propulsion. That guilt will eventually result in lower resistance to disaster surcharge taxes at the pump.
The trouble is we don't have a lot of time, and a lot of folks think wrongly that the situation is similar to DDT or the ozone hole and the damage is reversible. They don't understand that there are cascading cycles that accelerate heat accumulation, for example release vast amounts of methane that has been accumulating in permafrost for the last couple hundred thousand years. The stuff is 72 times more potent as a greenhouse gas. You don't stuff these effects back in the bottle, so it's not like the world can make it all back to normal after getting religion about climate change.
The laissez faire way of market problem solving is for CEOs to ignore their experts and allow themselves to be beaten over the head with reality for a few decades.
Then the CEO is ejected, has a come to Jesus moment, or Bain comes along and takes it through bankruptcy, or sells it off to China. Either way, the CEO gets a handsome check out of it.
That's the kind of economic leadership that Americans have come to expect from their captains of industry. That's why Romney is given a rating of 50% confidence on economic questions while Obama is given 43%.
If someone smokes for 50 years, shrugging off warnings about health effects, he was at personal risk of cancer. (And my Daddy did get lung cancer shortly after he quit -- twice.)
When individuals are willfully ignorant of or monetarily incentivized into delusions that there is no anthropogenetic climate change, then the results affect us all, not just the deniers.
That's why we should keep R+R away from federal power, and why we should every one of us be frightened and angry that this issue is not #1. (Anger is all I've got any longer. I've already voted.)
Call me cynical, but I sense an ulterior motive from the bombastic fellow. "Kill them with Kindness?"
Closer to Nov 6th, some event will give him a reason to castigate the President.
I don't care for the fantasist style of improvisational factoid assault and logic of a "Gov Christie" , but who could think that he was crass enough to be setting up a sucker punch ...
I think he wants to run in 2016 and is ok with shoving Robme out of the way. Nobody likes Willard, even within his own party. If that's his motive, I don't care. I do love that the right wing is going ape chit over this though! He'll be called a RINO in 3...2...1...
"I think he wants to run in 2016"
this might be true, however i am betting he is running for reelection as governor of NJ. isn't he up next year?
I agree, you have to sleep with one eye open with these guys.
I think CAF has it right. Christie wants to run for President in 2016 and if Romney gets elected, he will have to wait 8 years instead of 4. Why do you think his speech at the RNC was all about him? He is laying the groundwork for 2016.
I rather suspect that to make Gov. Christie's comments more striking he would need to hit somebody .
Its about character, something Obama has in quantity and Romney sorely lacks.
And maybe a little leadership? Managerial competence?
A soul?
But will they run this clip on Fox?
Seriously, when has Obama failed in a crisis? His temperment makes him perfect for times like these.
I bet they wont!
The idea of an individual failing to support the Party of individualism is taxing to the logic . The embrace of perverse attitudinizing of perfectly normal policy using bureaucratic hierarchal structuring as death panels is taxing to the logic . If the idea of kneeling before party apparatchicks has been overlooked by Gov. Christie his absence of Fox will remind him .
Apparently the extreme right wing republicans can get away with taxing logic , if nothing else .
Maybe Fox will run the clip with the intro "New Jersey Governor Christie is rumored to be leaving the Republican party." ;)
If Obama wins this thing and I think he will, and Dems regain the House and keep the Senate, I think you may see the steady decline of the Tea Party. What a blessing that would be because their obstruction has prevented governing of this Country. But what is amazing to me is how a man that has lied his way to a virtual tie is tied with the President. Who are the people that have been fooled, low information folks, racists, or who don't realize that Mitt Romney is not a job creator but a wealth creator for very few people, including himself. by cutting jobs and sending businesses to China?
I checked it's nowhere on Fox that I can find
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/30/christie-praises-obama-doesnt-give-a-damn-about-romney-photo-op/
He was interviewed by Fox and this is what he had to say but I couldn't find it on the Fox site...and now I am going to go take a hot shower because I've never looked at the Fox site before and I fill like my entire being is covered with scum.
I'll send disinfectant and a scrubbrush
Can't wait to see Ann Coulter's response to Christie's comments. I love it when she goes off the deep end about reasonable statements made by fellow GOPers, and this will make her blood boil.
Then again, any day without hearing a word from Ann Coulter is a good day.
He said the same thing about Obama on Fox and Friends this morning and was asked if Romney was going to getr to "tour" some of the devestation with him so Romney could benefit from Hurricane Sandy, and Christie said he didn't give a damn about Romney, that his attention was about his state.
From my Facebook post to my right leaning friends or should I say X friends...
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, if this storm isn’t the wakeup call for “climate change” being real, then you must have your head up your ….., this storm is named Sandy, so here are the ones that have happened this season so far; Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Rafael, Sandy, warmest July and September on record, historical drought in the mid-west…and so reduced government regulations would do what… clean coal, what about fly ash waste by product, excessive CO2 emissions, science is real, this isn’t a fairy tale… don’t be a dumb ass…
Like ·
In the 70's scientists predicted an ice age. Global warming may be a fact. If it is indeed a fact, it may be man made, it may not. Scientists on both sides of the issue. What is not acceptable is you telling your "friends" on FB thst they are dumbasses or have their head up their ass. I think many on here would say the same about you. For you to make death and devistation a political issue while people are fighting for their lives, homes, and businesses not cool. I can no longer stomach your hypocritical posts. You support the Navy only because it pays your mortgage; and also support a president who obviously has serious disdain for the military. You are the first person Ive ever deleted as a friend. Congatulations!
11 hours ago · Like
Reality sucks...
I would consider it a badge of honour. What people fail to realize about Facebook is if they don't like what you have to say they can simply hide you. I've got a few dozen people hidden because I quickly got tired of them thinking everything the president did was wrong. I mean, the law of averages would dispute that right there! I'd unfriend them but I'm waiting until after the election when they just have to accept that Obama has four more years and perhaps they'll calm down. If they don't, they're gone.
Your "friend" is a flipping idiot. Ive got "friends" like that too on FB and I cant wait for election night to rub their faces in it.
"Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."
William Shakespeare
The political-economic version of "there are no atheists in foxholes" is "there are no anti-government fanatics in a disaster zone."
Amen brother.
From my Facebook Post Yesterday, picked up by my right leaning friend (now x- friend)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, if this storm isn’t the wakeup call for “climate change” being real, then you must have your head up your ….., this storm is named Sandy, so here are the ones that have happened this season so far; Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Rafael, Sandy, warmest July and September on record, historical drought in the mid-west…and so reduced government regulations would do what… clean coal, what about fly ash waste by product, excessive CO2 emissions, science is real, this isn’t a fairy tale… don’t be a dumb ass…
Like ·
· 25 mutual friends
In the 70's scientists predicted an ice age. Global warming may be a fact. If it is indeed a fact, it may be man made, it may not. Scientists on both sides of the issue. What is not acceptable is you telling your "friends" on FB thst they are dumbasses or have their head up their ass. I think many on here would say the same about you. For you to make death and devistation a political issue while people are fighting for their lives, homes, and businesses not cool. I can no longer stomach your hypocritical posts. You support the Navy only because it pays your mortgage; and also support a president who obviously has serious disdain for the military. You are the first person Ive ever deleted as a friend. Congatulations!
11 hours ago · Like
Reality sucks...
Good riddance to bad rubbish..who needs truth denying friends like this...accusing You of ignoring death and destruction while they and their ilk have clearly been doing that all along....Go grab ANY random person on the street and I'm sure you will find a better friend.peace.
Reality has a liberal bias.
For every one who's been saying Government should not get involve. What are you saying now. God is in charge. Always remember that.
Interesting that yesterday Christie chewed the mayor of Atlantic City a new orifice for the way evacuation orders were handled there...
Not interesting, he was merely doing his job, and rather well.
Christie is not exactly my favorite guy in the world, but I admire what he did last night. He could have used the opportunity to score partisan political points, but he instead focused on doing what was right for his state, and acknowledging that Obama has been on top of things and that FEMA has been doing an excellent job setting up resources.
Let's not speculate on whether or not he had ulterior motives. Just because he's on the "other side" from us doesn't mean he doesn't care about his state and the safety of its citizens in a disaster. If there was some ulterior bowling-pin-setup going on, we'll know it eventually, and we can respond then, but to respond to this decent turn by Christie with cynicism and suspicion makes us look like awful human beings who can't even take a compliment. The proper response is "Thank you, stay safe, best of luck to your state, we'll do what we can to help."
I agree one hundred percent. I saw him praising the administration on Morning Joe this morning as well. He didn't seem like a guy w/ an agenda. He seemed like a guy who wanted to make sure all of the citizens in his state had all the resources they could possibly get to make sure everyone is as safe as possible.
I too have to give him kudos (much as I hate to do that for him, lol)!! He and his state have been given a monumental blow of epic proportions and he is doing what a governor should be doing!!
I think it is awesome that he gives credit to Obama for being the leader and go-to guy that Obama is at times like these.
And please, Gov Christie, get a little down time! I know you have been up for over 36 hours straight!!
God keep everyone that was in Sandy's path safe!
PS-- just had to add this.... and the douchebag who wants to do photo-ops in the disaster area just to get some "points"??? This is the idiot who would LOVE to decimate FEMA!!!
Christie has a shot for the 2016 nomination, but only if Obama is re-elected. I thought that was obvious after his key-note speech at the GOP Convention, which was all about Christie... oh, and by the way he kind of supports Romney.
And of course FOX won't air this. They're a pure political propaganda organization that has nothing to do with actual news. It's not like the entire world doesn't already know this. It's the thing that makes people who repeat FOX nonsense just that much more ridiculous.
PT Barnum would be proud of FOX.
It was aired on Fox, on the show that Steve Doocy (boy was he teased as a kid, lol)- and yes he's the dad of the idiot who was trying to be a weather reporter yesterday and not paying attention to where he was going, walked onto sand that "swallowed" his leg, LOL!
Anyway, I am not sure (never watching Faux News) but I think the show is called Fox and Friends or something like that.
The reason I know it was aired, I was over at my mom's house and since she lives, eats and breathes that noxious Faux News air, it was on.
I don't care for Governor Christie, but in this situation I admire the fact that he recognizes that this has nothing to do with politics and simply gives credit where credit is due... the President is doing his job, period. "Sandy" and the destruction she has wrought should NOT be turned into a political one upmanship... too many have lost too much.
As much of a loud mouthed, bombastic idiot as Christie normally is, I think that even he realizes that he will need alot, I mean alot of Federal government intervention and support to recover from the storm damage. With that said, we know President Obama is 110 percent into helping this country, and helping it through troubled times, even where his political enemies reside. And, with that said, I think Christie realizes that honey, instead of vinegar, makes him look reasonable, and also he is betting that honey will grease the path to Federal government dollars for New Jersey.
May God bless the four corners of your home as well as the four corners of the World.
This seems a bit disingenouous on Christie's part given the level of vitriol he showed Obama during his convention speech. I'm convinced this praise is more about helping Mitt lose and setting himself up for a 2016 run at the presidency.
The cynic in me thinks this is a subtle attempt to preclude any liberal criticism of Rmoney's (sic) plans for FEMA. If Obama does dare to point out the truth of how ol' Mitt would sell it off, the GOP will come back and cry "Shame, we BACKED you during Sandy"... and, of course, FAUX NEWS will love to run a "Obama makes political capital out of disaster" headline
Obama's not that stupid.
Oh, his supporters and surrogates will point out (correctly and fairly) Robme's disdain for FEMA, many, many times over the next week, but I doubt if Obama tackles it directly.
Meanwhile, Romney's people will be trying to "erase the tape" of their boss' comments an try and look more moderate than Clinton.
Every time I see Christie wear that gym suit....It makes me think of Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles....with the jacket that said GOV on the back....Makes me smile.
Much as I dislike Christie (there's the helicopter and then limo to his son's baseball game, and the policy stuff is much worse), I'm willing to give him credit, at least for the moment. He might be sincere in this one instance. What's really sad is that it's noteworthy for a Republican governor to express appreciation for Obama's response to a crisis. We're shocked because we've become used to public discourse that's coarse and riddled with misinformation, thanks almost entirely to Karl Rove, Roger Ailes, Newt Gingrich, etc., and their funding machines. (I was tempted to refer to them as the porcine Karl Rove, Roger Ailes, etc. etc. but that would be mean. Not misinformed, but mean.)
Mean to the porcine -americans? ie pigs.
I thought he was going to complain about how Dominos f-ed up his order.. He looks like a guy who's going to compain about the wrong kind of pizza!
Actually,he looks like the kind of guy who brings back a crushed up box with 2/3 of a slice in it and complains about the wrong order and demands a new pizza...oh...and some breadsticks....yeah...and those little chocolate lava cakes....snorffle...
The fact that he, alone among modern Republican governors, feels free to praise Obama even under these circumstances, says to me: a) he knows he gets more leeway from the Wingnut Thought Police both because he's a blustering bully who will bully back, b) he's feeling overwhelmed enough, right this second, not to give a damn about what Eric Erickson will say about him but cares a lot what his pretty Blue voters will say about him, and, c) the idea that Willard could actually win this thing has been giving him almost as many dead of the night anxiety attacks as its been giving me.
A lot of Republican governors would be worrying about their words influencing Federal disaster relief. After all, what's power for if you can't use it to reward allies and threaten enemies?
And, no, I don't see Christie toadying to Obama out of that kind of concern. Both because Christie may be many things, but a groveler isn't one of them and also because he's smart enough (unlike many others in his party) to know that that's not the way Obama rolls.
Foxtrot New's and Rush Limpball's will admonish Christie for his flagrant violation of party rule of giving credit where credit is due.We'll see if he bow's to the pressure.
I wonder if its possible that both Christie and Obama are being leaders when people's lives are in danger. Do you think? I mean its not something that we see very often. Leaders are usually much more interested in maintaing or increasing power, but try to remember, THIS is what leaders are SUPPOSED to do -work together and put citizens first. We're just not used to seeing it lately. I think its not particularly respectful of US to sit here and politicize the situation when THEY are doing it right for a change.
But should they not be doing the right thing every day?
A hero can be the person that steps up in a time of crisis to do what is right.
But a real hero is one who steps up everyday to do what is right and just. Even when there is nobody looking.
Maybe I am becoming too cynical.
No, I think you're totally right. I just don't want to knock these guys on the day that they DO bother to show up you know!?