New Jersey governor Chris Christie slams the NRA, and the media cheers. Christie slams House Speaker John Boehner for not putting a pork-laden Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill up for a vote, and the media cheers. Christie undermines the Republican nominee for president by politically French-kissing Obama in every conceivable way just days before the election, and the media cheers.
I have two words for Governor Christie: President McCain.
The media loved McCain, too; loved the way he publicly battled and undermined President George W. Bush; loved his maverick ways when those ways damaged the Republican Party. But where was all that media love when McCain really needed it? Where was all that media love when he became a candidate for president?
If Christie has any designs whatsoever on the presidency in 2016, he had best remember that the media only builds up Republicans who serve the left-wing agenda. But should you stop being useful, get all ambitious, and threaten a Democrat’s path to power, the media will turn on you, without mercy.
In a devastating 2008 pivot, and without missing a beat, as soon as he became the only roadblock to Barack Obama becoming president, the media magically transformed every quality they had so admired about McCain into massive liabilities.
It all started when the New York Times went directly after McCain’s most cherished possession, his integrity.
In what turned out to be a total hit-job, the Times accused McCain of having an affair with a lobbyist. From there it would only get worse. By the time he would make his concession speech on election night, the media had alchemized McCain’s maverick qualities into instability, his integrity into stubbornness, and his experience into dotage.
What Christie doesn’t seem to understand is that he’s already playing into the media’s hands with these mavericky outbursts. Because as soon as he becomes the roadblock between any Democrat and the White House in 2016, the media plans to McCain him.
The Christie outbursts the media’s positively orgasmic over today will soon become bullets in a magazine marked, “temperamental, unhinged, and unstable.” And Christie will immediately be labeled a tainted sell-out to the “right-wing” who “betrayed his independent roots,” no matter how he might win the Republican primary.
The media will also make issue of Christie’s weight. All kinds of justifications will be invented, but there can be no doubt that throughout the campaign the media will describe Christie’s “lack of self-discipline” as a bad role model for our nation’s children.
Enjoy this love while you can, Governor — but keep in mind that the media plays a three-level game of chess when it comes to destroying Republicans. This love is nothing more than the media encouraging the kind of behavior they intend to annihilate you with should you dare stop a Democrat from obtaining power.
And that third level has to do with how few of us in the base are going to be all that motivated to fight back on your behalf once the media assault begins. You see, the media knows that encouraging you to “Scarborough” us also hurts your electoral chances when it comes to the all-important grassroots energy.
Christie might think he’s being surrounded by all kinds of media love right now, but in reality, he’s only being surrounded.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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