It’s not as if the media completely refuses to cover Democrat scandals. It’s that they never assemble into the kind of piranha feeding frenzy that immediately erupted over Chris Christie’s bridge scandal. In fact, you’ll be very hard pressed to find any major Democrat “scandal” identified instantly using that word. If you’re a Democrat, and most especially if you’re Barack Obama, you’ll get much more neutral headlines that refer to the raising of questions, or perhaps the allegations of critics, who might even be identified as simply “Republicans” rather than “critics” if the press is particularly eager to immediately frame the issue as a partisan slap fight.
But Chris Christie awoke this morning to see the “FAT CHANCE NOW, CHRIS” emblazoned across the New York Daily News, coupled with a photo of the Governor dreaming about the White House. Anybody remember instantaneous media headlines telling Hillary Clinton to forget about the White House after four Americans died in Benghazi?
The Trentonian portrayed Christie wearing a traffic cone on his head (shades of “Plants vs. Zombies!”) with the caption, “I’ve got a bridge to sell.” Just about every headline describes the story as a high-explosive bombshell that wipes out Christie’s future, or boldly questions the honesty of his response to the story.
The media narrative is already framed and hung on the wall: Christie’s probably doomed, everything he says should be greeted with the deepest skepticism, and of course, this is the Biggest Story in the World. The speed and intensity of the media response is what creates the sort of narrative that reaches Low Information Voters, and lingers in their minds for years afterward.
Obama and his political team understand that perfectly, which is why they’ve been able to kill so many scandals by obstructing investigations. The media does not frenzy and consider the obstruction a gigantic story, as they surely would if Governor Christie sallied forth today to announce he was appointing a blue-ribbon panel that would investigate the bridge story for the next year or so. That sort of thing works for Barack Obama every single time, but it’s not likely to work for a Republican. In fact, even as charcoal briquettes are piled high by reporters in anticipating of the Christie barbecue, an enthusiastic Obama donor has been appointed to lead the IRS investigation. If Christie responds in kind today and appoints one of his donors to lead the Bridge-gate investigation, my estimation of him will rise enormously.
With these realities in mind, it’s very curious to hear anyone suggest that charges of hypocrisy will save Christie from the media swarm. By all means, remind the public of how much the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have gotten away with. Point out that on the other side of the George Washington Bridge, the new socialist mayor of New York City is emulating the Sandinstas he loves, and using his power to crush an innocent industry so one of his big-bucks donors can grab their real estate.
But don’t expect any of that to slow down the destruction of Chris Christie. It does not excuse anything his subordinates have done, anything he might have done, or his failure to detect and deal with the situation to note there is absolutely zero chance that the people who dismissed Obama and Clinton’s endless Benghazi lies as a non-story will sheepishly agree to show Governor Christie a fraction of the same courtesy. And for the love of Heaven, I hope there aren’t any Republican politicians anywhere who think they’re going to receive any “Get Out of Scandal Free” cards because the establishment press let Obama skate a dozen times.
No, my friends, it will never be good enough for you to say that you didn’t know what your subordinates were doing… or declare yourself more angry and frustrated than anyone, and then do absolutely nothing to deal with the supposedly infuriating scandal. You won’t get to portray the media inquisition as Democrat partisan politics, or thinly-veiled racism or sexism. You won’t be able to slow-walk the investigations until after the next election. I never want to see another Republican career die with a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face and “But, Obama…” frozen on his lips.
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