Suggests a billion good reasons for the access lane closings: Steve Kornacki has been breaking the rules established for cable news talent.
He seems to know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t restrict himself to the mouthing of nostrums and scripts and to the dropping of R-bombs.
Kornacki is especially well versed concerning the state of New Jersey, where he began his journalistic career. This has made him the press corps’ most valuable player concerning the Fort Lee fandango.
Why did those crazy lane closings occur? Kornacki explained his theory all night last night—or at least, he offered a set of intriguing suggestions.
The gentleman proved it all night long. We’ll let Rachel Maddow summarize:
MADDOW (1/14/14): MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki is an experienced New Jersey reporter who knows a lot of the principals involved in this scandal. He’s pointing to this giant billion-dollar development in Fort Lee which is being built basically right at the spot where those Fort Lee access lanes feed on to the George Washington Bridge.Again, let’s note the accuracy of this statement: “Not enough of the coverage points out that what is assumed to be the central reason it all happened hasn’t been proven.”
Could those lanes have been shut down to mess with that development somehow?
What is not yet explained in this scandal is why it happened. With all the blanket wall-to-wall coverage we are seeing of this scandal across the country right now, not enough of the coverage points out that what is assumed to be the central reason it all happened hasn’t been proven. There’s not a shred of evidence out of those 2,000-plus pages that were released from the legislature that suggests that that was why it happened.
Maddow refers to the idea that the lanes were closed because the mayor of Fort Lee endorsed Barbara Buono, not Christie.
As Maddow notes, “There’s not a shred of evidence out of those 2,000-plus pages that were released from the legislature that suggests that that was why it happened.” That said, the New York Times, which is always wrong, keeps saying precisely the opposite.
Moving on to Steve Kornacki and that billion-dollar development:
In Maddow’s telling, Kornacki has been suggesting that the lanes were closed “to mess with that development somehow.” He notes that the development’s value would crumble without the access to the George Washington Bridge those three traffic lanes provide.
If the lanes were taken away in the future, the development might be fatally wounded. For our money, Kornacki has been quite unclear as to why someone might want to threaten an action like that.
We have no idea if this story makes any sense at all. But presumably, this would be a threat of future debilitating action to force a chunk of the development’s massive value into the hands of Christie supporters.
In this scenario, the Christie Admin would threaten to reduce those invaluable lanes for some sort of greater purpose regarding traffic flow on I-95. Behind the scenes, developers would be strong-armed into giving up a chunk of the project to make this threat go away.
Is that what Kornacki is suggesting? We don’t know if that makes sense. But on the surface, it makes a lot more sense than the rather peculiar theories which emerged from “rumors” from New Jersey Dems, the world’s least effective known humans.
This whole scenario still seems crazy. How could anyone think they could shut down a highly visible city and that no one would notice?
That said, a gigantic sack of money is sitting right next to those access lanes. Kornacki, who keeps breaking the rules by knowing things, may be picking at something.
On first gazing into Kornacki’s knowledge: We were first amazed by Kornacki in April 2010. In this piece at the old Salon, he noted an important fact:
In 1992 exit polls, Perot voters were evenly split between Candidates Clinton and Bush.
Why does that fact matter? Ever since 1992, the RNC has pushed the idea that Bush would have won re-election except for Perot’s third party bid.
The exit polls suggest that just isn’t true. But as with all such talking points, Republicans got to repeat it for many years. As usual, liberals never had the slightest idea what to say in response.
We were amazed to see a liberal journalist who knew an actual fact!
We voiced our amazement in real time. Even at The One True Channel, the kid just keeps coming through.
So Kornacki's a hero because he has a different theory of the target of the obstruction? Why isn't Kornacki a partisan hack for jumping to the conclusion that Christie directed the lane closure to pursue a political vendetta?
ReplyDeleteIs the "it was a bungled traffic study" theory already down the memory hole? It was given star treatment only 3 days ago...
Because a financial motive isn't a partisan motive. Also because he seems to be trying to make sense of a puzzling situation instead of just using whatever is known to hurt Christie.
DeleteBecause he has another kind of "P" word associated with his anatomy than the Millionairess Duchess of IsFox?
DeletePoint of order, Mr. Somerby.
ReplyDeleteIf your new found journalistic hero, Kornacki, is right, doesn't this mean that this whole thing is something more than "pointless" and "ginned-up"?
Clarification:
Delete"new found" because I am a douchebag troll. That is all.
t think the motive behind the Christie administration messing in this is obvious.
ReplyDeleteIt's 'If there's a ton of money and political favors going on, you guys are cutting the Guv in.'
That said Kornacki needs a rebuttal person on so the audience understands it's conjecture still.
"That said Kornacki needs a rebuttal person on so the audience understands it's conjecture still."
DeleteYou mean like this, Cecelia?
"MADDOW (1/14/14): MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki is an experienced New Jersey reporter who knows a lot of the principals involved in this scandal. He’s pointing to this giant billion-dollar development in Fort Lee which is being built basically right at the spot where those Fort Lee access lanes feed on to the George Washington Bridge.
"Could those lanes have been shut down to mess with that development somehow?
"What is not yet explained in this scandal is why it happened. With all the blanket wall-to-wall coverage we are seeing of this scandal across the country right now, not enough of the coverage points out that what is assumed to be the central reason it all happened hasn’t been proven. There’s not a shred of evidence out of those 2,000-plus pages that were released from the legislature that suggests that that was why it happened."
No. As appropriate as it is that the host warn the audience that this is theorizing, more is needed.
DeleteIf this scenario is to be discussed in depth, someone needs to be there as a skeptic.
It could be a Christie supporter or another journalist.
"It's 'If there's a ton of money and political favors going on, you guys are cutting the Guv in.'"
DeleteGee, if people didn't know you better and know how much you hate people going beyond the evidence, that might sound like you are accusing "the Guv" of soliciting bribes.
Oh, so somebody in addition to Maddow should have been there to say the same thing Maddow said, lest foolish and silly people like Bob think that Kornacki might be onto something.
DeleteIt's all so clear now.
Anon1:30pm, I'm not accusing Christie of anything, I'm arguing that a motive for him to let the mayor know who's large and in charge is obvious.
DeleteThis is conjecture. Which is why such explorations of the scandal have to be consistently countered by someone in real time.
So which is it? "Obvious" or "conjecture"?
DeleteThe motive is obvious if Christie colluded to harass the mayor.
DeleteIt is conjecture that he did.
Anon1:33pm, the blog addresses that comment sections were full of comments acting as though Maddow's original alternate scenario was a foregone conclusion.
DeleteAnd we all know what valuable sources of information that a handfull of comments plucked out of hundreds always are.
DeleteI should have said that *A* motive is obvious if Christie was harassing the mayor because of the land deal.
DeleteAnon 2:10pm, I think having someone designated to rebut is a helpful thing and more importantly the fair thing to do for the person being theorized over.
DeleteDuring the Fort Lee traffic fiasco, Bridget Kelly e-mailed Wildstein asking him if Baroni was going to return any of Sokolich's "urgent" calls.
DeleteWildstein's reply: “Radio silence. His name comes right after Mayor Fulop.”.
Cecelia, go look up Mayor Fulop, find out what happened to him, and why.
Anon 2:21pm, even more reason to have real time rebuttal when conjecturing on why Christie may have done what.
DeleteThere are several theories out there.
You keep assuming this is directed against the mayor of Ft. Lee. Why would it be? He isn't in charge of the development. Maybe this has little to do with the mayor.It makes no sense as extortion of the mayor. Actually it makes little sense as extortion of anyone because it is just too visible and because the damage was done, not threatened, and thus is unlikely to be allowed to happen again. Sort of like threatening to put something embarrassing on Youtube by actually putting it there. You lose your leverage. So this doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an explanation.
DeleteWe've already established that the host of the show herself isn't enough. How many rebuttal witnesses do you want, Cecelia?
DeleteOne more? You sure? After all wouldn't two more be better? How about three?
After all, we must make sure that people like Bob don't take this latest theory and run to their blogs with it.
Anon 2:42pm, despite all your objections made in good faith, I say go with one.
DeleteAnon 2:41pm, well, we don't know for sure.
DeleteHowever, there's nothing like a demonstration of power in mucking things up to get builders, investors, local politicians, and businessmen listening.
It is conjecture, and you make a good point.
OK, so we have established that only one more rebuttal witness was needed in addition to the host to repeat what the host just said before we get confused and think that this was more than "conjecture" -- which, of course, seems to be allowed today, but was an evil, journalistic practice just yesterday.
DeleteNow go run and tell your leader. Apparently, he's one of the people who think there might be something to Kornacki's theory despite the absence of a sufficient number of rebuttal witnesses.
Guess that makes him not quite as sharp as you are, and one of those easily confused Maddow viewers now.
Why does Cecelia hate fat people? That's already been pointed out as being beneath even trolls.
DeleteAnon 3:31pm, one of the problems of being a troll is that you must pretend to be singularly concrete in your thinking and singularly blinkered against your target.
DeleteThe worst part of being a troll is when you're good at those things.
Congrats. You're a natural.
CeceliaMc,
DeleteWhy do you assume that any "rebuttal" guests are out there? You do understand that all the characters involved aren't talking, right? This is part of the reason it's a story, you know?
Cecelia, I wish I could return the complement, but your MO is to deflect, dodge, move the goalposts and bring up the silliest things to avoid talking about the obvious.
DeleteRight now, we have Bob lavishly praising Kornacki for "conjecture" after a month of hearing from him -- and you repeating -- what a mortal journalistic sin that was.
You jump in and said that someone should have made it clear that it was conjecture.
I pointed out that someone did. Rachel Maddow, in fact.
But that wasn't enough. Should have had on another guest, just to be sure.
All because your brain can't put together why "conjecture" from the always sharp-as-a-tack Kornacki, dating back to his brilliant Salon piece, is allowed by the guy who does your thinking for you, while "conjecture" from anyone else is a felony as recently as yesterday.
And before you again try to change the subject, yes, Maddow has always labeled what she said as conjecture and theory, and warned that the evidence isn't there yet to support it, despite what Somerby has previously told you about her "ginning up" a "pointless" controversy.
As it turns out, Rachel Maddows journalistic instincts were spot-on, and Somerby's couldn't possibly have been more wrong.
And this particular post is his peculiar way of throwng all that he has written before down the memory hole, hoping that people like you forget.
And it will work. But only with people like you.
mm, suppose Maddow had invited Somerby himself, knowing how much he hates conjecture, just to make double sure her viewers don't get the wrong idea.
DeleteAnd instead, Somerby offers a live version of this post:
"Wow, Kornacki! You're really onto something here! I'm amazed, just like I was back in April 2010 when you analyzed the 1992 election!"
Poor Cecelia's head would have exploded.
mm, a "rebuttal guest doesn't have to be involved. It can be a pundit or journalist.
DeleteAnon 4:21pm. It's not a moving of the goalpost, it's your inability to make commonsensical comparisons.
DeleteAs for conjecture, I wrote a post yesterday saying that I thought it was okay to explore theories of motives as long as there was someone there to offer a rebuttal.
Somerby's problem is with meme and rumors that are shoehorned into the narrative.
Wildstein is close to Christie. Christie was getting even with the mayor even though the mayor says he can't remember being asked to support Christie.
Frankly, I don't think you read anything here as much as seek to dismantle it.
That's a shame. You are truly missing out in enjoying a unique voice simply because you think he's not a team player
Oh, deary yes, Cecelia. That must be it. I'm missing out on a truly unique voice simply because I think he's not a team player.
DeleteI do agree on one thing. He is unique.
Nowhere else will you find a "voice" so fixated on Rachel Maddow that he would write the completely wrong-headed things he wrote about the bridge scandal just one month ago, and even as late as last Saturday, in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, still propose that it was "possible" that it was all merely a good-faith, legitimate study that was bungled.
But don't take my word for it, for goodness sake. Go to the "incomparable archives" and see for yourself how much posts about Rachel Maddow have absolutely dominated this blog.
How "unique."
That's a shame. You are truly missing out in enjoying a unique voice simply because you think he's not a team player
DeleteSomerby's problem is with meme and rumors that are shoehorned into the narrative.
The shame is you shoehorn any criticism of BOB into your meme without realizing neither you or BOB are unique or immune from the same behavior which animate the bloggers' ire.
KZ
CeceliaMc,
DeleteThat is absurd. She already has had the reporters who are, you know, reporting on this matter. Who should she invite, some reporters who aren't investigating? Rudi Guillani? I don't recall Walter Cronkite inviting rebuttal guests when he reported the news.
I'm not talking about rebuttal to straight forward news reporting. If you're doing a segment exploring possible motives for Christie being culpable in this (and Maddow has), a push-back from someone also versed on the case should be included.
DeleteIt can come from another reporter or pundit and be designated as devil's advocate.
I think that's the way you explore such things, yet keep it fair to the person who is the subject of such theorizing.
KZ, grow up.
DeleteNo one is immune to such behavior. How important does that make it that people with a national microphone and the power to make pariahs, be scrutinized.
How sophomoric is it for you to argue that you care nothing about the people Somerby critiques, you're just here to point out his hypocrisy.
It's a dishonest and lame argument that generally results in little more than posts jeering that Somerby's subjects are rubber and he is glue.
It's a troll's argument and a troll's sense of perspective.
"It can come from another reporter or pundit and be designated as devil's advocate."
DeleteAh, I see. You want your news from people who are playing designated roles and following their scripts, regardless of what they actually believe.
Just to refresh your memory, this discussion is about whether Maddow's caveat that Kornacki's theory is still not proven is sufficient warning to her viewers.
I say it was, you say it wasn't. And now you are reduced to arguing that she should have called upon somebody to play a role.
Yes. It's nothing new.
DeleteJournalists, hosts, do challenge the arguments and suppositions of their guests, or other reporters are there to do that.
It has nothing to do with the personal opinions of the people doing it.
For the love of all that is holy, please stop, Cecelia.
DeleteThe point that you keep repeating far beyond the point of absurdity is that some designated devil's advocate wasn't on Maddow's show to repeat the very thing Maddow herself had clearly stated.
Look, you first said "somebody" should have said it was a theory. It was clearly pointed out to you that "somebody" did -- Maddow herself.
Your response? Shift the goalposts and add "somebody in addition to . . ."
And who should that "somebody in addition to" be? Somebody who is merely playing a role and reciting the script you want.
CeceliaMc,
DeleteTry to keep this straight.
This story is about 2 things. Who ordered it and why?
Something inexplicable happened. From day 1 people have been trying to find out why. People have resigned their jobs. People have been fired. Subpoenas have been issued. The 5th Ammendment has been invoked. The governor has apologized. Still no explanation.
In case you haven't noticed, there are no plausible explanations forthcoming from the main actors in this drama. In case you haven't noticed, nobody, even Republicans, have suggested an innocent rational logical explanation.
THAT'S THE FUCKING STORY. This isn't the fucking spin room.
You just don't get it, mm. In Bob's World where Cecelia has taken up residence, every story is always about Rachel Maddow.
Deletemm, none of that has any bearing on the fact that guilt should not be a foregone conclusion on a news show, until it's proved.
DeleteYou can insist to the stars that Chris Christie (or some focus of Nancy Grace...) doesn't deserve that, but you 'll always be wrong.
A counter defense to speculations of motive and guilt is ethical journalism.
"A counter defense to speculations of motive and guilt is ethical journalism."
DeleteAnd Governor Christie will be getting right on that, as long as your inquiry is appropriate.
As to the 1992 election, I will say that since some 60+ percent of the voters that day voted AGAINST the incumbent POTUS, it is quite "possible" that the Perot votes wouldn't have split evenly, despite what they told the exit pollsters, and that Clinton would have won in a popular vote landslide, as well as his electoral college landslide.
ReplyDeleteWe really will never know, and I really don't care to imagine what is inside the heads of those who thought H. Ross Perot would make a good president.
Exit polls do track actual voting. That's why people use them to figure out what happened during elections.
DeleteYes, and there is also a margin of error attached to them.
DeleteLook, I am not saying that there was a snowball's chance that Bush I would have won without Perot in the race. An incumbent who only polls 38 percent is in for a whupping.
But I also do not find it shocking that GOP partisans were selling this pleasing tale. I would be shocked if anyone with a functioning brain outside their own circle believed it.
What's interesting to me were the pre-election polling, with or without, Perot, that showed Bush in the high 30s regardless.
Without Perot, Clinton was polling in the low 50s. With Perot, he dropped to the low-to-mid 40s.
Also, dare I add that the pleasing GOP tale about Bush winning sans Perot has been publicly and repeatedly refuted by pundits citing the exit poll data, long before there was a Salon and not too long after there even was a Kornacki?
DeleteAnonymous 4:40
DeleteKornacki did a bang up job on the 92 election in 2010.
Somerby is hoping that when he gets around to the 2000 election in 2018, Kornacki will prove tales of inventing the interenet, four button suits and living in luxury hotels were what propelled Busin into the White House.
Good one, 7:09.
DeletePlease blog on black kids. You are the only one who cares about them.
ReplyDeleteEnough with this ethnocentricity. TDH cares about all kids.
DeleteHe is just sauced the blacks ones get ignored by the One True Cable Cabal.
Chris Christie on Dec. 2, 2013:
ReplyDelete“I think we should review that entire policy, because I’ve sat in that traffic, before I was governor, at the George Washington Bridge, and the fact that one town has three lanes dedicated to it, that kind of gets me sauced.”
So the Governor of New Jersey didn't know about the billion-dollar development and how critical those access lanes were to it.
Right.
You don't think this could have started because Christie told a staff member "Find out why we have to sit in traffic so long every time we cross that damned bridge."?
DeleteIt could have started that way. But the staff member wouldn't have heard Christie's question because of the prop and rotor noise in the helicoper.
DeleteYou mean the same chopper he took to his kid's baseball game?
DeleteAs for the obvious answer to the question posed, wouldn't it be: "Uh, Governor? Because it's the busiest bridge in the world?"
Same chopper. The one that took him to the limo which drove him the final few hundred feet.
DeleteEven with two lanes close, that development would have easy access to the bridge.
ReplyDeleteBut uh-oh! That project is a pet project of Sokolich's - which would make the NY Times right again, curses!
Unless you are being sarcastic (hard to tell), I think the Baroni-Wildstein TL 24 "trial" clearly demonstrated what would happen to traffic in and all around that development with two lanes closed.
DeleteBut yes, "pet project" might be an understatement. I think it was Sokolich's legacy -- the one thing he would be most remembered for -- forever.
And yeah, what better way to mess with him than to mess with his legacy?
Which makes the NY Times right, of course.
The issue is being confused and the New York Times has it right, Governor Christie is a ferocious bully and set the stage for ferocious bullying by his staff and appointees. Of course that is what happened.
ReplyDeleteStepien is a Serbian name. Perhaps the reference is to him not the Ft Lee mayor.
ReplyDelete"New Jersey Dems, the world’s least effective known humans."
ReplyDeleteA Malala like judgement from mankind's most effective blogger.
Hey, they elected Bill Bradley, arch foe of Al the Good. What better proof could you ask for?
DeleteChristie is also an egregious liar who lies and lies about his cuts to bhe education budget of disadvantaged school children.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/14/what-christie-failed-to-mention-in-state-of-state-speech-about-his-education-record/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/opinion/the-christie-way.html?ref=opinion
ReplyDeleteSomerby did indeed praise Kornacki back in 2010. In that same post he wrote:
ReplyDelete"Their side is massively-financed and technically skilled. Our side is in the hands of children, sell-outs and goof-balls."
And he got in a first few licks at Ravitch.
"We were amazed to see a liberal journalist who knew an actual fact! "
DeleteSpeaks volumes, doesn't it?