Enablers

Christie
Obviously Chris has abandoned all hope of continuing his political career, as signaled by his approval of a 27¢ per gallon gasoline tax increase for New Jersey.  Maybe Tr*mp will allow him to be a talking head on that new news network — albeit neither loyalty nor gratitude seem to figure much into Tr*mp's "temperament."

Giuliani
Rudy was a racist when he served as Mayor of New York City; but these days he's a louder racist.  It's cute how he's out there insisting Tr*mp is a "genius" who can fix the tax code because he's exploited it so well.  (Needless to say, Tr*mp's tax proposal would leave the outrageous breaks for commercial real estate developers intact.)

McConnell & Ryan
Mitch and Paul still seem to have difficulty gagging out support for "their" presidential candidate, but somehow they manage to do so no matter how embarrassing he becomes or how often he contradicts orthodox Republican policy.  Tr*mp may be inconsistent, but he sticks with cutting taxes on the rich — and that's what matters.

Cruz
I guess Ted has come to decide his wife must be ugly and his father really did help plan the assassination of JFK.  How else to explain his endorsement of Tr*mp?  Surely an individual of such high and noble ideals could not have succumbed to political pressure.

Very Briefly

✪ The decision by Congress to allow families of 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia may lead to lawsuits against the US for consequences of CIA and military activities; I'm fine with that. 
✪ Investigators have provided extensive proof that a Russian Surface-to-Air Missile was responsible for the downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine; uh huh.   
✪ Speaking of SAMs, isn't it time to start providing shoulder mounted SAMs to the Syrian rebels, even at the risk of them getting into the hands of Fateh al-Shah (al-Nusra)?   
✪ To the dismay of vestigial Blairites, Jeremy Corbyn continues to lead the Labour Party sharply to the left; so, whither the Democrats? 
✪ So now Peres is dead, along with Rabin, Arafat, and the Oslo Accord; Nobel prize points for trying, I guess. 
✪ David Wildstein's testimony at the Bridgegate trial of Christie toadies Baroni and Kelly continues to provide a laugh a minute as corruption in state and local politics scarcely takes a breather; up next, the Cuomo administration.

Chris Christie

I have been laughing my ass off at the great Fort Lee New Jersey traffic jam.  Granted, I was not one of the poor saps trying to get across the George Washington Bridge during four days of needless lane closures intended to "punish" Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich for his failure to endorse fat boy's run for a second term.

Is there anybody, anywhere, who believes in the governor's claim to have been out of the loop?  If he was, than he's far too incompetent to run his state — hell, he couldn't even manage his staff!  And why were the emails released to the press so heavily redacted?  I say, guilty until proven imbecilic.

Anyway, the situation should kill any chance he had of winning the presidential nomination.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.  Might the Great American Public have elected a sleazebag bully from New Jersey?  I don't have a clue.

Now if Hillary would only get back at Bill by having an affair with Mitch McConnell, well...

One lives and hopes.

Clinton v. Christie? Oh, crap!

It's more than two years until the Iowa conventions, but the pundits, of course, have to say something.  Chuck Schumer, the senator from Wall Street, also has weighed in, along with a bunch of Hollywood assholes on  behalf of Hillary.  Christie is not yet endorsed by any big shot Republican PACs, which demonstrates that big shot Republican PACs are not quite so dumb as Hollywood assholes, but the pundits don't much care.

We've already had another Clinton, a slightly darker complected "first Black president" by the name of Barack Obama.  We certainly don't need another.  This time around, we need a liberal.

Christie, on the other hand, is just another opportunist with a gigantic ego and a tendency to dissemble.  I would like it, of course, if the Red States advanced Ted Cruz, but only if the Democrats had somebody who was a real Democrat to oppose him.

Yes, I dream of Elizabeth Warren, but that probably won't happen this time around.  Too bad.  Warren v. Cruz would offer voters a real choice — kind of like DeBlasio v. Lhota.  Okay, I apologize.  Lhota is not nearly so bad as Cruz.  If he ran against Hillary, I just might vote for him.

Liar liar

Every so often, some public official tells such a blatant lie that even the lapdog news media feel obliged to point it out. One thing they never do, though, is come right out and call the liars what they are: liars. Okay, every so often we can accept that somebody might "misspeak" — but when somebody tells a straight-out pants-on-fire whopper, I don't think liar is too strong a term.

In yesterday's Times, for example, there was a well-reasoned and well-documented article about New Jersey governor Chris Christie, documenting how he repeatedly delivers misinformation (also called lies) to the public and the press. Not once, of course, did the Times use the plain English word "liar" with respect to the governor. One supposes the editors are sensitive to accusations of liberal bias, but the accusations will come anyway — especially from those who want the public to go on believing Christie's lies.

Of course, New Jersey Democrats also refrain from calling Christie a liar. Granted, New Jersey politicians of both parties are not exactly renowned for their scrupulous veracity, and sometimes it surely would be a case of "the pot calling the kettle black." You might think a good defense against that might be honesty, but you'd be wrong. Liars have no compunctions about lying to claim that truths are lies and lies are truths.

On the other hand, the secret of Christie's success — and that of most other political liars as well — lies in his very aggressive stance towards his opponents. He doesn't even have to answer questions or criticisms to satisfy the voters, as long as he stays on the attack. A successful counterattack has to be equally aggressive, and the consistent use of a term like "liar" will do the trick — whether he's genuinely lying, merely mistaken, or just spouting ideological sound bites that can be neither confirmed nor disconfirmed.

It's not realistic to expect everybody to use factcheck.org or some similar service. Realists must assume that people believe whatever fits best with their pre-existing beliefs and prejudices. Come to think of it, when you consider that most Americans think the vast majority of politicians are liars, it is not surprising that verified facts play such a small part in our political discourse.