New Jersey Governor Chris Christie taped an interview with CBS News’ “Sunday Morning,” and said “there’s gotta be a solution other than” shutting down the government over ObamaCare. The interview will air on Sunday, just a day before the government runs out of discretionary spending authority.
“I think it’s always irresponsible if you’re running the government to be advocating for shutting it down,” Christie said. “That, by definition, is a failure. You’ve gotta work it out.”
“Quite frankly, to be fair, I don’t think you hear responsible Republican leaders advocating a shutdown of the government,” Christie added.
Actually, no Republicans are advocating a government shutdown. Unsurprisingly, Christie is accepting a false narrative being pushed by Democrats and the media. The Republicans want to fund government and defund ObamaCare, which is increasingly unpopular. The Democrats want to fund government and fund ObamaCare.
Presumably, there is some middle-ground between funding and defunding.
Why do Christie and the media think it is up to the Republicans alone to “work it out”? Harry Reid has said that, not only will he not negotiate with House Speaker John Boehner, he won’t even talk to him. How is that “responsible”?
Moreover, after the Senate completes its work today, it is jetting off for the weekend. When it returns Monday it will have just hours to consider any new House language before the government shuts down. Does that behavior, in Christie’s lexicon, constitute a “failure”?
Christie is widely expected to run for the GOP nomination in 2016. He inhabits, however, a highly overpopulated wing of the Republican party. He is a Republican who has picked one or two conservative issues, but then expends most of his oxygen criticizing other Republicans, especially conservatives, to show how “reasonable” he is to the media.
It isn’t clear that Republican primary voters are eager for a reprise of the John McCain campaign in 2016.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.