So we’re a week into BridgeGate, and the late night hosts can’t resist poking fun at N.J. Gov. Chris Christie. With the media handing them straight lines, the writers are having a field day. The jokes are practically writing themselves: Christie, scandal, fat.
If Gov. Christie were truly the Democrat a lot of Republicans consider him to be, he could have just said, “What difference does it make?” and it would have been over by now. And in reality, what difference does a little traffic make? Heck the President closed down more roads during his Hawaiian vacation, taking the family out for shaved ice.
Now I can’t expect the talk hosts to go after any of the Obama scandals with the same aggression as they would hold for a Republican, and by now we should be used to it. As we’ve been told repeatedly: absent a sex scandal, Democrats just aren’t funny. They’re all smart, good intentioned and never make mistakes. (Well they do sometimes, but it’s always just a mistake, never evidence of an underlying stupidity.)
But something strange is happening with this scandal. It’s actually being written by the late night hosts. Christie has denied any involvement in the bridge closure. He also fired the person responsible. Yet if your only access to the news is late night TV (as it is for many), you probably think Christie closed the bridge himself.
Last night three hosts used the opportunity of the governor’s State of the State Address to get in a few more digs.
David Letterman said that Christie kept jobs from leaving the State… Of course he did, he CLOSED THE BRIDGE. The host also edited words out of the State of the State, so that it looked like Christie said, “I am the largest human ever.”
Jimmy Fallon (who scored big points earlier this week with his Bruce Springsteen impression) said the scandal might lead to impeachment, and when Christie heard about that he said, “mmm … peaches.”
Jay Leno was probably the fairest of the three. He said the scandal was in the governor’s office (rather than tied directly to him at this point) and that Republicans are standing behind him … which is why why you can’t see them.
If you were to compare this to back when HealthCare.gov was failing so miserably, you will remember that very few times was the president actually tied to the failed website. It was almost as if ObamaCare was crashing all around President Barack Obama, and his only to it connection was the unfortunate name.
What is happening to the New Jersey Governor reminds me of what comics did to Sarah Palin. They turned the line, “you can actually see Russia fromland here in Alaska” into “I can see Russia from my house!”
As the BridgeGate scandal wears on, it’s getting much harder to believe the late night hosts’ claims that the only bias in comedy is funny.
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