NJ Governor/presidential wannabe Chris Christie caught a break this week when erstwhile rival, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, nixed his own White House plans. As recently as last summer, both Christie and Walker were arguably co-favorites be the next republican candidate who might replace President Barack Obama.
What a difference a year makes, huh? Chris Christie’s numbers are still abysmal, but Walker’s unceremonious departure was definitely a bit of good news for the Christie campaign.
So let’s quick douse some cold water on all that!
Unfit to Lead
Being commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces is surely one of any president’s most important duties. Judging from his performance as commander-in-chief of NJ’s National Guard, Chris Christie has no business whatsoever running the Pentagon. A recent Washington Post story revealed that the 8,400 citizen soldiers serving in NJ’s Guard comprise “a militia that has become increasingly dysfunctional under (Christie’s) watch.”
“It’s like the mob,” Lt Col Brian K. Scully (RET) told WaPo, himself drummed out, he alleges, for not cooperating with a coverup when Christie’s first Adjunct General – a childhood friend of the Governor’s – was caught with his actual pants down and forced to resign.
So to review: there’s corruption, cronyism, racism, drunk-driving, sex scandals, and an overall lack of top-down leadership and discipline currently plaguing the NJ National Guard. This, all on the watch of current leader, General Cunniff, the same guy who said “he could not meet the (fitness) requirements when he took charge of the Guard in December 2011, so he kept putting it off” until receiving an actual reprimand from the Pentagon (which the Governor only learned about through the press.)“The Governor has expressed directly to the General that his failure to meet that standard or to provide notification of his formal reprimand is both unacceptable and disappointing,” Christie’s offices said in a statement, alluding only to General Cunniff’s lack of military-ready physical fitness (and none of the other other more worrying infractions taking place.)
With its sundry scandals back in the headlines, New Jersey’s National Guard clearly had a lousy press week. But not surprisingly the focus was on the news that our notoriously rotund Governor Christie had ordered a brother-in-girth to slim down. The irony is rich and delicious, I get it. But don’t let one (admittedly) snicker-worthy detail mask the top-down, wholesale degradation of our state’s National Guard.
