Geraldo Rivera forcefully debated Bill O’Reilly last night on the import of the Bridgegate scandal on Chris Christie’s political future. O’Reilly played the GOP cards of trying to make the scandal about the Obama administration, minimize the scandal’s impact on Christie’s career and delegitimize the investigation. All of which Rivera batted aside as he honed in on the serious danger to Christie ahead. But Rivera also tried to talk up Christie – by likening him to Tony Soprano.
Rivera told O’Reilly:
This is a huge story… We love Chris Christie. I voted for him twice. He’s the Tony Soprano of politics in the good way. It’s like having the Mafia guy on your side. …I don’t mean to imply that he’s a gangster. But he’s a tough guy, he’s a no-nonsense guy. You want a Republican like him to fight against the squishy liberals.
Really?
Rivera went on to argue that Christie must have known what happened: that his top aides closed lanes of the George Washington Bridge and tied up traffic as political retribution. Rivera added, “But he is definitely running scared right now. This is a cancer on his presidential aspirations.”
“I don’t believe that,” O’Reilly said.
But O'Reilly did not challenge Rivera's contention that prosecutors would give Christie's aides immunity for ratting him out (assuming there's something to rat him out about).
Of course, we know that on Fox Christie will be the victim of some kind of Democratic plot no matter what. But whether that will fly with Fox’s Republican BFFs remains to be seen.
I know alodda ’bout thugs! Like those guys who took me oudda embedded-battle-plan-map-making-in-the-sand.
Um, no… They were both such horrible, callous people that the only compliment to be had there is how well someone hides being an asshole.
That’s funny, Gerald — it wasn’t too long ago that, according to Neil Cavuto, being compared to Tony Soprano wasn’t so positive:
During Saturday’s Cavuto on Business (9/18/10), the Obama administration was repeatedly compared to the Mafia over health care reform. First, host Neil Cavuto compared Kathleen Sebelius to Tony Soprano for telling health insurers to stop unjustified rate increases. Then, a few minutes later, regular Charles Payne said, “You’ve got the Gambinos, the, who do we have, the Lucchese’s.. .You’re gonna like this health care plan whether you like it or not."(two other panelists, Gerri Willis and John Layfield, laughed.)
http://www.newshounds.us/2010/09/21/fox_news_contributor_compares_the_health_care_bill_to_organized_crime.php
Oh well — IOKIYAR, I guess . . .
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