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6A Daily News – Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Opinion Governor Juggernaut DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Avast me mateys. Off the starboard bow. Thar she blows. Looks like the Chris Christie juggernaut hit its first iceberg. And harpoons are flying in from multiple quarters. Back on the Jersey Shore, Hillary Clinton's people and Rand Paul's people are partying so loud and hard, Snooki and JWoww's people are banging on doors demanding they keep it down. Rumors that Governor Juggernaut was a petty and vindictive bully have rattled across the borders of the Garden State for quite some time. So when it was revealed that aides shut down two-thirds of the lanes on the George Washington Bridge to punish Fort Lee's mayor for not endorsing him, it sounded as in-character as the bolts on Baron von Frankenstein's little buddy. Funny thing is, when you think of the porcine politico and major arteries being clogged, traffic patterns are not what springs to mind. Christie, however, claims to have had nothing to do with the allegations. And attempted to prove it by getting rid of the guilty staffers quicker than a shower shank thrust to a snitch. If throwing people under a bus were an Olympic event, Chris Christie would be waving from the top of the podium wearing a double-XL tracksuit in Russia next month. Fortunately, the bus was stuck in traffic and never moved. The fact is, either he knew about the GW Bridge closure and did nothing about it, which makes him a cretinous toad: or he had no idea that his staff closed down the bridge, which makes him a frigging idiot. And nobody thinks Chris Christie is a frigging idiot. Especially him. Evidenced during a monumental press conference, where he fielded questions from reporters for almost 2 hours. He didn't answer many of them, but that's not the point. His peculiar attraction is authenticity and he went to great pains to appear authentically contrite and apologetic. As well as selfenamored. He's definitely a role model for that small group of plus-sized Americans big enough to have a bromance tures of his junk to with themselves. anybody. Wouldn't You do have to give have been able to it to the Tony Soprano scrape that image of politics for not tryoff our collective ing to hide behind a retinas with a belt rock. Of course, the sander. Himalayas being outIt's becoming side of New Jersey obvious that this guy could be partly respondoesn't run a Banana sible for that. But two Republic, he is a hours? Have we Banana Republic. learned nothing from No man is an island, Nixon? Christie dug but some are pretty potential potholes big Will close to peninsulas, enough for both him and this particular and his special purpose land mass still has to to sink into. be considered the Some experts odds-on favorite for worry this is going to the 2016 GOP nomiend badly with connation. He's too big struction crews forced to fail, and will also to remove the Capitol rotunda so that cranes can lift most likely prove to be too big Chris Christie and his ego out to jail. to safety in order to undergo Will Durst is a nationally an operation that will staple acclaimed and award-winning together his lips. Then again, the whole political comic. Go to willdurst.com country should get down on to find about more about his new its knees and thank god that CD, "Elect to Laugh," and his of personal when Governor Bridge & Tun- calendar nel did get into trouble, it appearances. Email Will at wasn't for texting naked pic- durst@caglecartoons.com. Durst Raging Moderate Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Commentary A year of presidential governing dangerously Before the events, stories and outrages of 2013 fade from memory—news organizations having generally resumed transmitting spin as stenographers for the Obama-crat left—some attention to political catastrophes and Constitutional scandals is due. Truly state-controlled news media would probably have ignored the fiasco that was the Obamacare rollout; they would have sent stories about massive insurance cancellations due to the law and its regulations into the "memory hole." California's major media, even local outlets, have mostly ignored and buried unpleasantness related to Covered California; skeptical, even cynical, eyes can find it in the numbers. There are a number of "Top 10" lists floating around that have informed my impressions and memories, including (search by title) "President Obama's top 10 constitutional violations of 2013" by Ilya Shapiro of Cato Institute, and "Ten Broken Obamacare Promises" by Alyene Senger of Heritage Foundation. They catalogue a breathtaking indictment. I think John Podhoretz, however, may have come closest to the core of the matter with "Why Obama can't wave away this scandal; the media shielded the president from every criticism—until he betrayed a liberal cause." He begins: "People are puzzled: Why would Barack Obama have lied about how wonderfully everything was going to go with ObamaCare when officials in his administration knew perfectly well that disaster was going to strike?" Part of it was the obsession, just before October 1, with not "giving the enemy the satisfaction of agreeing" to a per- fectly reasonable (in hindsight) proposal to delay the rollout. Moreover, any sort of admission that the system wasn't ready would have been ammunition for those same "enemies." "But there's a deeper reason he and his people lied: They did it because nearly five years in the White House had given Obama and his team confidence they would not face the music and they could finesse the problems until they got fixed. Consider the events that would have been unprecedented scandals in a Republican administration—with teams of reporters digging and scratching daily at every nook and cranny in every bureaucratic corridor—that have instead been covered … with relatively little passion and almost no follow-up. Why? Because it would have hurt Obama, that's why." Just consider the media feeding frenzy over the manipulation of bridge traffic by underlings of N.J. Governor Chris Christie, with no hint that the scheme ever involved Christie himself. Compare that to the low-key approach many of those same smug news hounds used as Obama's IRS unconstitutionally abused conservative citizens, for the shameful motive of reelecting Obama by suppressing their votes in 2012. Ted Kennedy killed a woman driving off a bridge—he became a liberal icon; Obama planned for months to shut down the national parks, ruining many vacations—he blamed the Tea Party. When conservatives try to shore up the integrity and legitimacy of elections by insisting that dead people be purged from voter rolls and living people provide identifi- cation like that required to use a liar, Susan Rice, as his national credit or debit card—liberal hyste- security adviser without experiencria erupts over phony claims of dis- ing a moment's fear about how her enfranchisement of minorities. appointment might become a scandal." However, genuine Rather than accept admitted targeting and election results giving harassment by the IRS Republicans control of of groups with anti-liberthe House of Represenal agendas, that has protatives (a co-equal duced "shamed retirebranch of Congress) and ments, hasty changes at the power to fund or not the top of the agency and fund the president's officials pleading the policies, Obama said he Fifth Amendment," gets would use his executive a ho-hum "Move along, authority to "get things nothing to see here." done." The Constitution It strains credulity to was intentionally think that a Republican Don designed to "get things Attorney General would if at all, have gotten the "kid Polson done" slowly,not by one and certainly glove" treatment accorded Eric Holder over the The way man. Even liberal legal scholar Jeffery Toobin "Fast and Furious" gunsuggested that the very running policy. It resultI see it reason our Framers ed in U.S. Border Patrol designed that document agents, as well as hundreds of Mexican citizens, being was to restrain unilateral, apparmurdered by Mexican drug-cartel ently power-mad leaders like members—with weapons provid- Obama. Factors inducing the blindness ed by Holder's Justice Department. "He approved the secret surveil- and arrogance of the Obama White lance of Fox News Channel House to the rage, disappointment reporter James Rosen … and simi- and disgusted wonderment over lar tactics against reporters at the the fiasco of Obamacare: 1) his libAssociated Press." From the eral base loves him unreservedly, 2) Senate Democrats have lifted media: virtual crickets. There have been no lasting con- not a finger to trouble him, and 3) sequences over the dereliction of he has always had the protection of duty and non-accountability for the mainstream media. However, Obama's and Clinton's actions (or by "mishandling and discrediting non-actions) surrounding the ter- the great liberal desideratum of our rorist attacks and murders of four time—a national health-care sysAmericans—including the first tem" Obama may have gone too ambassador in over 30 years—in far. We'll see. Benghazi. Not only were the Don Polson has called Red Bluff American people deliberately and home since 1988. He can be consciously misled with a made-up by e-mail at story about an anti-Islam video, but reached "Obama felt free to select the chief donplsn@yahoo.com.