The Bezos Times really should replace Rubin with a slightly less absurd conservative hack (via):
After Washington Post conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin attached herself early to Mitt Romney andconfidently predicted his triumph for months, the shock of his unforeseeable loss left Rubin confused and leaderless for about a year. But she has settled back comfortably at the feet of Chris Christie, defending him with escalating devotion in a series of blog posts (here,here, here, here, here, here, and here) as a compulsively honest man persecuted by hypocritical partisans and likely to emerge from the pseudo-scandal not merely unscathed, but actually better off for it. (“The focus on an agenda more relevant to the rest of the country and more explicitly conservative may help him in the long run.”)
[….]Rubin likewise asserts, “MSNBC says the mayor has a personal diary that corroborates her claim — a diary that has yet to be released, reviewed or verified.” In fact, Zimmer’s diary entries are posted on MSNBC’s site — or, if you don’t trust MSNBC, other news sites as well — and the physical diary is being reviewed by the U.S. attorneyinvestigating Christie.
dr. bloor
Were you lying before or are you lying now, Ms. Rubin?
Patricia Kayden
Unfortunately for Conservative hacks like Rubin, reality has a liberal bias. Even without this scandal, I doubt Christie would have beat Secretary Clinton. I’ve never understood his allure. (But then again I’m a Black woman who has never considered voting Republican).
Ash Can
My first thought was that this goes hand-in-glove with the previous post on Mika Brzezinski, in that they’re both Christie supporters who are being traumatized by, and are unable to accept, reality. Now that I think about it a little more, though, there is a real difference — while Mika is upset because she’s actually a friend of Christie’s, Jennifer Rubin, being nothing more than a dishonest and incompetent hack, has simply hitched her wagon to someone she thinks may make her look smart if she writes positive things about him. And as dr. bloor so clearly and concisely points out @ #1, we all know how well that worked out for her with Romney.
Violet
It must be sad to live your life so in need of a powerful Daddy figure that you keep creating them when the previous one lets you down yet again.
Baud
You can’t trust anything on the Internet.
Mandalay
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trollhattan
@Violet:
Such an overly simplistic explanation but it sure fits, doesn’t it? I shudder to imagine what set of circumstances got her a salary to operate at such a zenith of incompetence. She Jonah Goldberg’s cousin, or something?
Cervantes
An excerpt from former Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton’s advice to Bezos:
Roger Moore
I don’t think it’s his feet she’s been paying attention to.
Baud
Christie’s being vetted in a way Obama never has been.
geg6
Is there anyone more ludicrous with a regular gig on a prestigious editorial page anywhere than Rubin? I know there are a lot of idiots polluting the op/ed pages (Krauthammer, Cohen, Brooks, MoDo, Friedman, Gerson, Noonen and on and on and on), but she really is in a dunce class of her own. Every time I read her stuff, I remember the time a few months ago when Suzanne Sommers was featured on someone’s op/ed page and people were laughing themselves silly over and, at the time, I kept thinking that she’s not any more ridiculous than Jen Rubin.
EconWatcher
I know y’all are partial to Tbogg around here, and mostly with good reason. But when Chait gets going, he’s got game. Follow Dougj’s links and read the entire tirade.
Comrade Jake
Mika’s pronouncements are quite a bit worse, to be honest. She’s made it plainly clear that she’s become pretty good friends with Christie. Apparently it never occurred to her that as a “journalist” and host of a political news show, that perhaps that was a conflict of interest.
trollhattan
@Cervantes:
Wow.
Violet
Christie met with financial backers on Sunday night. Apparently they’re not yet opening their wallets. Christie still doesn’t think any of this is his fault:
He’s “being tested.” Not that he messed up in any way. No, God just dropped this giant “test” in front of him and he’s got to “deal with it”.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/20/christie-i-havent-enjoyed-the-last-11-days/?hpt=hp_t2
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
To be fair, Christie probably hasn’t seen his feet since 1986 so needs folks to tell him whether they’re still attached.
markmac
@Baud:
Really?
Punchy
Rubin suckling the C-cup teats of Chri-Chri, ignoring all the clear evidence of a crime at worst, fat-fuck bully at best? Man bites dog, news at 11.
mdblanche
Rubin is not a dear supporter of whatever Republican whose press releases she currently turns in unaltered as her column. Her rates are quite reasonable really.
Ash Can
@Violet:
Chris, you ass, you’ve been tested all your life, challenged to be a good and decent person. What you’re going through now isn’t a test, it’s the consequences of fucking FAILING the real test.
Baud
@markmac:
No, fool. Snarky.
Villago Delenda Est
Jenny, I’ve got your number.
867-5309. For a good time (if you’re a Rethuglican) call!
Anoniminous
Rubin is attempting to protect an endangered animal:
But it is moot. Jenny-baby can bluster and fuster all she wants. This is going to end-up being decided in a Court of Law not the Court of Public Opinion.
[edited]
Tommy
@Ash Can: Well therein lies the problem with most of our media. Folks like Mika get all weak in the knees if a politician just seems to “talk straight” and says what he/she thinks. They don’t seem to look at their history, voting record, much less policies. I mean it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice his second election, where again folks like Mika couldn’t stop praising Christie, well in the same election they voted to raise the minium wage, something Christie is against 110%.
MattF
Jen is in a pickle because she’s gone all in for Christie, saying negative things about pretty much every other potential nominee. If it isn’t Christie, she’ll just have to give it up. Well, not actually, but we’re not talking about actuality here.
Quicksand
That
birth certificatediary isn’t real – it was fabricated by Chicago-style democrat thugs to get ahead.WereBear
It’s a symptom of just how far our “journalism” has fallen.
However, I believe we are setting a record for “sycophantic suck-up shills” that has not been seen since the Mandarins ruled China!
Bob In Portland
@Roger Moore: From that position she’s got a better sightline than Christie does.
Belafon
@Quicksand: For Obama’s third term.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes:
If Bezos wants to signal a distinct change in the corporate culture at Pravda on the Potomac, the first step is placing Hiatt’s head on a pike outside the entrance.
Tommy
OK, been thinking this for days and I just have to say it.
I really think, at least at this point, the GWB bridge story is getting way too much coverage, and I am 110% sure Christie was involved. Sure it sucks. I’d think illegal. And as somebody that used to live in DC and take an hour each way (on a VERY good day) to drive 23 miles to work, I flipping hate traffic.
I am an MSNBC guy, but that is about all they are covering. I mean isn’t something else happening in the world? I don’t know the NSA is spying on us and Obama doesn’t seem to care a lot. Hundreds of thousands of people can’t drink water in WV, heck the EPA doesn’t even know what the chemical in the water is … much less what it does to humans (if you don’t know, there has never been a study on humans, only rats by the company that makes said chemical in like 1976 [Eastman Kodak BTW]). Iran’s nuclear deal. CA is on freaking fire. Iraq is going totally into the shitter.
Again, I think it should be covered. Where there is smoke there is usually a fire and I bet there is a lot we don’t know about the GWB bridge closing, much less the claims Mayor Zimmer made (which are really, really serious).
But come on, this wall-to-wall coverage is too much.
IMHO makes us look at little kids that just can’t wait to bring Christie down.
Ben Cisco
That’s no low bar, that’s a benjo ditch.
MattF
@WereBear: Courtiers have been flattering the powerful since Ptero told T Rex he had the very bestest teeth and claws. It’s disgusting, but it’s not unusual.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes:
That is, like anything “authored” by Jerome Corsi, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity….
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
The bigger thing is that their judgment of whether somebody is a straight talker is the degree to which the politician is willing to violently agree with their own position. Somebody who speaks an uncomfortable truth that they want to avoid is not a straight shooter; he’s an asshole who’s stirring up trouble for no good reason.
WereBear
Tommy, you’re a sweet guy and I love ya, but this is the best thing since sliced bread in Antarctica, and you are complaining?
The Republican Presidential front-runner gets involved in a La Brea Tar Pit level of scandal, where every few days another bombshell drops, and the ripples spread and spread, and it was all broken by a liberal lesbian with a PhD in Political Science who is running leads to ground like a Walker hound?
Really? You’re complaining?
MattF
@efgoldman: I suspect that there’s plenty of people who found that their managers have taped ‘Don’t even think about writing that’ signs on their desktops this morning.
Tommy
@Quicksand: I can’t find the link, saw it in a Twitter feed last weekend. The link talked about how the Diary, which folks on the right were mocking, can carry a lot of weight in a court of law. It seems, based on previous court cases, and lot of weight. That ones keep for months, and he appears courts have figured out how to tell if they were in fact keep over a period of time, are often viewed almost like a contract. I am overstating it somewhat, but I was stunned by some of the references. Yet another thing I didn’t realize.
Violet
@Tommy: There’s no other news because this Christie thing is happening to them personally. They’re his friend, they wanted him to be President, it’s their bridge and so forth. A better example of the self-centered mypoia that masquerades as our news you’d be hard pressed to find.
Kropadope
The principles that define this agenda seem to be mutually exclusive.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Tommy: I don’t know about wall-to-wall coverage, but as far as your doubt that he was involved, my sentiments were put into graphic form, as is so often the case, by Dan Perkins in TMW.
Absolutely perfect, the funniest laugh out loud line being “All right, I’ll be in my office if you need me. Whoever you are.”
The whole idea that his famous reputation as a bully, and his staff acting like bullies, are just wild, disconnected coincidences has always seemed the fishiest part of this whole story, particularly his claim that none of this was his doing and he knew nothing about it. Anyone who believes that, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to stall you on.
Tommy
@WereBear: Yeah. Look I can’t even stomach much news outside of Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and Up and MHP on the weekends. I used to listen to MSNBC in background, like a radio station, for hours each day. Can’t do that anymore.
And given Rachel and Steve have been doing great, original coverage. But I think of like 8 hours of the MSNBC early morning weekend shows, about 6.5 were on Christie.
I am sorry, that is too much for me.
Now I KNOW these two things are not exactly the same, but I feel at some level we’re using the GWB issue like the right and Fox Noise used (and I guess still using) the Bengazi thing (which wasn’t a really thing).
Sorry, just too much for me.
FRANCH
DougJ, step inside my Hyundai.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Bill E Pilgrim:
@Tommy:
Sorry, I read your post wrong I guess, I thought you wrote that you’re “not 100% sure” that he was involved. Read too fast. Great cartoon anyway.
Tommy
@Violet: Now it is their bridge and the hosts all live and/or work in the NYC metro area is clearly part of it.
An example I thought of this weekend is I live in Southern IL right outside of St. Louis. The state of MO has totally messed up the expansion of the largest highway in this part of the country (IL is an entire decade ahead and done), so many weekends entire parts of it are just shut down for construction.
There are rumors about all kinds of things. But I am sure if somebody like Rachel spent sometime looking into it, they’d find terrible deals and gosh knows what. Nobody talked about this on MSNBC.
But again, it is in their “backyard” and I didn’t factor that into my initial comment …. and I should have cause clearly it influences coverage.
Violet
@Tommy: Good Lord, how much MSNBC do you watch? Most of the country (based on ratings) barely turns the channel on.
So your issue is that one cable “news” channel spends, in your opinion, too much time on a story about a Republican Governor’s alleged corruption? Solution: change the channel!
Or, if your issue is that the time they spend on this issue is somehow damaging to…something–Democrats? Liberals? “Our side”? The media? Someone’s reputation or credibility? I don’t know what you think it’s damaging to, but I don’t see it hurting anyone but Christie and Republicans.
Chris
Who might that be?
In our day and age, I thought being a Romney/Christie groupie (rather than a groupie for Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin et al) was itself the mark of a “slightly less absurd” conservative.
Bill E Pilgrim
Not having a TV helps with the wall to wall thing. A lot. Just saying. Getting everything you ever see on the Internet, including whatever TV you decide you want to see, makes it all a lot more choice-based, at least for me. I never do that thing I used to do, watching things that just happened to come on next or leaving it on for hours. There’s still wall-to-wall news coverage on the Internet, no doubt, but it all feels more in my control this way somehow.
Tommy
@Violet: Why is that important?
Only a fraction of the nation turn on Fox Noise. Do you ever say that?
I think Bill O has the highest rated show any day and never goes over 2.8M. Often 1.8M to 2.2M.
BTW: TPM one of my favorite news sources, Of the front page, left side articles. 4 Christie. 3 MLK. One site news.
Fred
@Baud: No need to call the man names guy. If your humor is so dry it reads like trollery (and it left me puzzlin’) you could just explain and let it go at that.
Baud
@Fred:
I was just being silly with the whole “fool” thing. But I guess that’s my dry humor again.
Villago Delenda Est
MSNBC is going nuts because Christie is THE “reasonable Rethuglican” prospect in 2016, and he’s caught up in a shitstorm of his own making.
It’s delicious, it’s irresistible, and it’s a slow news month.
geg6
@Tommy:
They’ve been covering both of those stories. I watch the network and I’ve seen plenty of coverage of WV and the NSA.
Violet
@Tommy:
Yes, I have said that. Not very many people watch the cable “news” channels. However the reach of the conservative talking points go much further because they’ve been more coordinated in their strategies for a long time now. Talk radio, cable news (not only Fox), editorial pages, etc. will all magically have the same story or theme on the same day. Democrats never seem to accomplish that in the same manner.
As for TPM, yes, they’ve been going to town on the Christie story. I guess that’s the advantage of running your own news site–you get to cover what interests you.
Alex S.
I wonder when Rubin is going to praise Scott Walker, that’ll be the tell.
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: Josh Brown, ‘The reformed Broker’, has a post saying that this scandal, now, in plenty of time be learned from by Christie, and forgotten by everyone else, is good news for Christie.
I usually enjoy his financial observations. Politics is not necessarily his forte.
RaflW
@Bill E Pilgrim: MHP had segments on Transphobia and on MLK yesterday. I’m fairly sure she covered other things, too.
Yes there are other very important issues. But helping the GOP brand further implode could well help swing the whole damn country to a better political future. (Or not … I’m not feeling that optimistic about my fellow voters)
Frankensteinbeck
@Violet:
This would be because Democrats are actually interested in governing more than power, don’t agree because they think being right is important, and most importantly because it’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, that the entire national journalist class goes to every morning to ask ‘What should my talking points be?’
@efgoldman:
Yes. Specifically, they complain that MLK doesn’t deserve the honor. I’ve had to listen to it.
Citizen Alan
Yes. Specifically, they complain that MLK doesn’t deserve the honor. I’ve had to listen to it. \
In my neck of the woods, they mainly ignore MLK and passive-aggressively celebrate Robert E. Lee Day instead.
Citizen Alan
I’ve often thought of Jennifer Rubin and Ruth Marcus as being the Goofus and Gallant of the Washington Post — if, that is, Goofus and Gallant had been two middle-aged Jewish women, both of whom consistently touted GOP talking points and tried to undermine the Democrats, only one did it politely and the other as rudely and stupidly as possible.
McJulie
@efgoldman: Based on my brief stint as a phone monkey for a mobile phone company, they complain about banks and post offices and so on being closed.
McJulie
In a way, the problem with modern conservatism is that its disconnect from reality is the point — Republicans have become the party for people who wish reality was, in fact, different than reality is. That’s where the purely political right and the religious right meet up — I’ll help support your creationism if you enable my global warming denialism. It’s like a psychotic support group
RaflW
Taegan Goddard: A new USA Today/Pew Research poll finds that of those Americans following the story, 58 percent do not think Christie was unaware that his aides caused the traffic jams for political payback. Only 32 percent said they believed the governor was unaware of his aides’ actions.
Count Joe and Mika in the credulous 32%.
Ruckus
@Tommy:
I understand about being too much. But think of it another way. Christie is/was being discussed as the next rethuglican savior. This is important to see that he is just another asshole hack and that he employees the same. It should be front and center for long enough to intrude on your life. And the lives of many others, because think of what your life would be like with Christie or someone like him as president. Info like this needs to be out there early and often and everywhere. You posted about MO road construction being fucked up and that no one is covering it, but ask yourself if the person causing it is or will be running for pres. If that answer is yes then send that info to Rachel and I’ll bet she looks into it and spreads the word. If not then it isn’t as important. The more info that is out there the more people will come forward about Christie with even more and that is vital.
feebog
@Tommy:
That, and the fact that TRMS was the ONLY newshow covering this story at all for four months. Plus Steve K is from New Jersey and in fact used to work on a blog owned by David Wildstein. Plus, its not like they are flogging the same story for the last few weeks. The investigation is progressing, and other related stories like Hoboken kept this center stage. Personally, I can’t get enough. I say keep on truckin’.
mdblanche
@RaflW: Governor Harkonnen is just 5% away from rock bottom.
Although I’d hardly say it looked any better if Christie were unaware of what his staff was up to. The “just a poor judge of character that the crooks took advantage of” defense is rarely effective even when it’s true.
JR
@Baud: Christie has committed crimes in a way President Obama never has. Troll, f u !