Government craziness

It’s getting crazier in government, lately. At GAO, the government’s
organization to check efficiency, toilets exploded, and bathrooms were
declared off limits. “Do not flush toilets,” employees were admonished.
Add to that press reports disclosing that the Justice Department had a
conference where they paid $15 for cupcakes …

No wonder there is hostility to government. While those crazinesses were
happening, the media establishment was ruminating over whether New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie should be president in view of his vast
“weightland,” to adapt T.S. Eliot’s poem. Less analyzed was what he had
to offer, and why he was considered the Republicans’ answer to Romney,
Bachmann, Perry, et al., and, by the way, the one to solve our country’s
problems.

I’m from New Jersey, so I take pride in the Garden State’s successes. But I don’t get the national flirtation with Chris Christie. I’ve voted Republican in New Jersey (Clifford Case for Senate), though more regularly for Democrats — so it isn’t party loyalty that raises my eyebrows at the Christie political movement.

The debate seemed to be whether Christie is too fat to be president. Given the number of Americans who are overweight, that might have proven to be his strongest credential. The right question is whether he is fit to be president — and there is scant evidence either way on that question, as he himself stated candidly. Bill Bradley, a former New Jersey senator and presidential candidate, once stated, correctly, that the question isn’t whether he was a great candidate and could win the election. It was whether he was equipped to govern, if elected. On that ground, he demurred. Christie did too, after tempting entreaties.

A term as a prosecutor, and a few years in state government, hardly provide credentials for a tested chief executive of the most powerful country in the world. Christie might be, but he was wise to choose to mature into that demanding role. That was his instinct initially, and he was correct. The best thing about his candidacy was that he rejected it.

The key question isn’t about elections, and it shouldn’t be. It is about governing at a very difficult period with the country facing tremendous problems. A few innings in New Jersey politics doesn’t qualify anyone for that challenge.

I know Woodrow Wilson, and Christie is no Woodrow Wilson.

Now back to the seven dwarfs …

Ronald Goldfarb is a Washington-based attorney, author and literary agent.