Sunday, October 02, 2011

Dana Milbank Promises Us: "President Christie Would Fail, Because He's Just Another Barack Obama"

Funny tactics used by the media these days.  First, they try to convince us that Chris Christie is unfit for the presidency because...he is physically unfit. (perhaps if they took more photos of Michelle Obama from the back they'd question her fitness to measure ours as well).  With that tactic flying as well as a lead balloon, Dana Milbank has a new one:  Warn folks in advance he'll fail.

Milbank's argument is the most recent canard, that we are an ungovernable nation because we won't do what they (the liberal media) say we should, but it is his line of "reasoning", if one might call it that, that is unique.  He declares Chris Christie's unfitness by comparing him to another failed president:  Barack Obama.

Christie represents: a political superman who can, in a single-bound, transform the whole mess our political system has become.

We’ve seen this movie before, with a Democrat playing the lead role.

...Christie, like Obama, is a man of prodigious talent.

f he wins the nomination and beats Obama, he will disappoint his credulous followers just as Obama has disappointed his and George W. Bush disappointed his. Washington’s problems are beyond the ability of one man to repair.

...can another charismatic neophyte really turn around our broken system the way the draft-Christie crowd imagines?

Christie, a "charismatic neophyte", just like Barack Obama? Let's compare careers up until each declared/possibly declares for the White House:

Barack Obama: Occidental, Columbia, Harvard Law, a little light community organizing, a couple of years timeserving in a state legislature, two years in the Senate, most of which involved crafting a presidential run. (hat tip: Mark Steyn)

Chris Christie:
-In 1987, Christie joined the law firm of Dughi, Hewit & Palatucci of Cranford, New Jersey. In 1993, he was named a partner in the firm. Christie specialized in securities law, appellate practice, election law, and government affair
-Won election as Morris County Freeholder in 1994. Defeated in 1998
-Christie served as the U.S Attorney (app't by GWB)- the chief federal law enforcement officer in New Jersey - from January 17, 2002 to December 1, 2008. His office included 137 attorneys, with offices in Newark, Trenton and Camden. During his tenure, Christie's office won convictions or guilty pleas from 130 public officials, both Republican and Democratic, on the state, county and local levels without losing a single case
-elected governor in a deep blue state in 2009. And what has he accomplished in that job?

Christie closed a massive deficit without raising taxes, working with a Democratic legislature. He followed up on that victory by signing a 2 percent property tax growth cap, a measure similar to a tax cap that has proven to be a significant restraint on government spending in Massachusetts.

This year, Christie signed a public employee benefits reform bill that limits collective bargaining by workers for benefits, raises the retirement age, requires a greater employee contribution for benefits, and suspends automatic cost of living allowances. Overall, according to Christie, the reform will save the state $130 billion. While the state's public employee pension fund is still badly underfunded, Christie deserves credit for taking the first step toward bringing New Jersey's long-term liabilities into line with its revenues.


Chris Christie signing landmark legislation that increases pension and health contributions paid by a half-million teachers, police and other public workers while removing the issue from collective bargaining for four years.


No, no, no! says Milbank...he's a neophyte, just like Obama! He'll let you down! He's all talk and no action! Nobody can save us now, because Obama's failure has proven that we are ungovernable! And that's because we are too soft!

Sounds like Milbank has watched Christie's YouTube videos, but has done little actual study on the revolution in New Jersey government the governor has managed, something also thought to be impossible in a state considered "corrupt and ungovernable" in recent years.  Milbank's pathetic arguments smell like pure panic puree to me.

All the more reason we might want to Go Large in 2012....

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