In case you missed it, there are major new developments in the Chris Christie “Bridgegate” scandal. The mayor of Hoboken, NJ has come forward to accuse the governor of threatening to withhold Hurricane Sandy relief funds unless she supported the Rockefeller Project, a development project he favored. But you’d never know that from watching Fox News Sunday today. That show was too busy questioning the Obama administration to find any time to discuss Christie.
Besides the additional evidence of strong arming by the Christie administration, Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s accusation ties the threat directly to Christie, himself. As the clip below from Zimmer’s interview on CNN’s State of the Union shows, Zimmer said:
The fact is… the lieutenant governor pulled me aside and she said, you know, essentially, “You gotta move forward with the Rockefeller Project. This project is really important to the governor.” And she said that she had been with him on Friday night and that this was a direct message from the governor. …She said that to me, is that this is a direct message from the governor, “I was with him on Friday night.”
Zimmer’s accusation was made public on MSNBC yesterday. Whether you believe the Democratic Zimmer or not, the accusation is certainly serious and newsworthy. That is, unless you’re Fox News' flagship Sunday news show.
Today’s Fox News Sunday made President Obama’s proposed NSA reforms the top story. Host Chris Wallace asked questions such as, “Why on earth would we extend our constitutional protections to foreigners, particularly when we know those countries are spying on us?” and “Is this a PR move?” Next topic: “alarming new testimony about the security of the ObamaCare website.” And, of course, there was a chat about Fox’s beloved Benghazi topic. Wallace teased the Benghazi discussion by saying the panel would be on later “to discuss a tough new report in the Benghazi terrorist attack.” The “Power Player of the Week” segment was about a doctor using 3d printers to analyze and treat heart ailments. There was no talk about Christie, even in the panel discussions.
This was no anomaly. Media Matters found that Fox buried the news yesterday, the day the Hoboken mayor's story broke:
Fox News mentioned Christie only three times on Saturday, January 18, and only one of those references, during a brief news segment, mentioned the allegations from the mayor of Hoboken. The second mention was Sen. Angus King’s (I-ME) statement that if Hillary Clinton was responsible for Benghazi, Christie is responsible for the bridge scandal, while the third was during a segment about Christie campaigning in Florida for Gov. Rick Scott that did not mention the scandals. By contrast, Fox mentioned “Benghazi” 20 times during the same time period.
Media Matters also pointed out that on #MediaBuzz, Fox’s media criticism show, there was a segment “asking” whether the Christie coverage "has reached overkill." Not surprisingly, there was no such concern over Fox's coverage.
So every Sunday show but Fox covered it.
Those that do write the talking points must have taken the weekend off or they could waiting for Rush’s to return on Monday with his orders. The attacks against Mayor Zimmer should begin sometime tomorrow.
And today I heard the pompous David Frum equating Christie’s to President Obama’s “Rev. Wright” and Pres. Clinton’s “Gennifer Flowers” scandals during a discussion with Jonathan Alter.
Alter’s response?
“At least Obama’s scandal wasn’t illegal.”
Even his biggest backer, Catholic scold Ken Langone (see my comment from day before), has taken to lecturing Christie in public despite hosting this big Palm Beach event for him.
Let’s see how long it takes Langone to show up on Fox.
BTW, I think ABC also ignored Christie today. Stepanpoopolis was too full of himself (as usual) with his Putin interview.
David Gregory had plenty of time for NJ today, but then we all know how NBC is out to get Christie!