Maddow spots Christie changing his story!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014

If only she’d change her approach: If it’s Monday, it must be Salem Village!

On her increasingly ridiculous TV show, Maddow had another victim to dunk in the village lake that night. For details, just click here.

Last night, she started with her endless piddle about how no one can say what Wildstein did at the Port Authority. Plus, he was paid too much—$150,000!

One hour later, a WNYC editor explained Wildstein’s job in substantial detail. And, according to TV Guide, Maddow is paid about $7 million per year. For the full skinny, click this.

This is the crap which now defines the scandal culture at Maddow’s ridiculous program. That said, let’s not forget the ridiculous premise of last night’s second segment.

(The presentation actually started during the first segment.)

Once the scandal culture takes hold, cable stars may feel they need a new scandal every night. Last night, Our Own Clownish Demagogue decided to hand us the piddle detailed below.

Note: This is a classic artifact of scandal culture. Hustlers search every comma their target has emitted, praying to God that they will be able to locate a “change of story.”

Here are the rules of this game, as dropped on many Democrats’ heads:

If the target says the exact same thing every time, he’s accused of being suspiciously scripted. If the target changes a single comma, he’s accused of changing his story.

With those childish rules in mind, gaze on the work of a pitiful cable demagogue:

MADDOW (2/5/14): Governor Christie himself, in a little noticed comment, appears to have unveiled a new explanation this week about his own role in this scandal.

The governor, of course, continues to say that he had no advance knowledge of what was going to happen on that bridge. He also says that, despite these allegations from David Wildstein to the contrary, the governor also says he had no knowledge of what was going on that bridge while it was underway, while it was happening. The governor says he only found out what was going on with the shutdown of those lanes after it was over.

But this week, this week we believe for the first time, Governor Christie has announced a new explanation for how he responded to this event. He says now that as soon as he heard about the lane closures on the bridge, after it was over—he says he read about it in the Wall Street Journal, in an article published October 1st.

He now says that as soon as he read that article on October 1, the governor says he dispatched his two most senior staffers to go to the Port Authority and figure out what was going on.

Governor Christie has not previously said that he did this, but now he says that’s what happened and that’s what he did. This is new. Watch.

(Videotape from Monday night radio show)
TELEPHONE CALLER: I do just have one question about the bridge.
CHRISTIE: Sure. Yes.
TELEPHONE CALLER: Why, when it was closed down, and your traffic was backed up in New Jersey, our state, why didn’t you call up at that time to find out what the issue was?
CHRISTIE: Well, first of all, Carol Ann, I didn’t know about traffic, as I told you. And as soon as I was aware of the fact that there was a problem, which was when Pat Foye’s e-mail came out, I had my staff say—go find out what’s going on at the Port Authority, why are they fighting with each other over this? And what happened?

So I did call, Carol Ann, and I did ask my staff to find out what was going on. So to answer Carol Ann’s question again directly is, as soon as I knew that there was some issue here, I asked my staff to get to the Port Authority and find out what was going on.

Now, when did I first know about the lane closures? You know, the fact is that the first time this really came into my consciousness as an issue was when Pat Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority, his e-mail was leaked to the media and reported on. And that was the first time that I got a sense that there might be some issue here.
RADIO HOST: And who brought that to your attention? Was that your staff?
CHRISTIE: No. It was news accounts.
RADIO HOST: You read them personally or did somebody bring it to your attention?
CHRISTIE: No, I read it. I read it in the Wall Street Journal. And it was that day then, when I read that, that Pat Foye was saying, this wasn’t, I didn’t know about this, this wasn’t cleared through me, you know, whatever else he said in that e-mail, that’s when I asked my chief of staff and chief counsel, Would you look into this and see what’s going on here?
(End of videotape)

MADDOW: We are currently going through all known previous statements from Governor Christie on this matter to see if he ever before mentioned that in October, he sent his chief of staff and his chief counsel to go to the Port Authority to investigate the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge. So far we have found no previous instance in which Governor Christie ever mentioned this before he said so this week.

I mean, the governor was pressed on this issue on December 2, that’s when he lashed out and said, “Yes, it was me moving the traffic cones.” He was asked about it repeatedly at his press conference on December 13. He was pressed repeatedly on when he first found out about this, and how he reacted. He never mentioned that, as soon as he found out about the lane closures, he dispatched his general counsel and his chief of staff to go to the Port Authority and investigate. At least as far as we can find.

But now, looking back on it, now he says that’s what he did. It’s odd, right? A whole new story.

[...]

Why is there now, this week, a whole new explanation from Governor Christie for how he responded to the bridge shutdown?

Except it actually isn’t odd. It also isn’t a whole new story or a whole new explanation.

For all we know, Christie may have planned the entire Fort Lee disaster. But his statement Monday night isn’t odd, and it isn’t a whole new story.

The things he’s saying may not be true. But Monday night’s presentation wasn’t especially odd, and it wasn’t suspiciously new.

Christie has repeatedly said that he inquired into the Fort Lee matter after seeing the Wall Street Journal article about Foye’s angry email. Below, you see a set of exchanges from the January 9 press conference, in which Christie is describing the same process.

Unfortunately, the questioners weren’t miked. This is from the official transcript:

QUESTION (1/9/14): Can you explain why [off mic] email was first published [off mic] first time that there was [off mic]?

CHRISTIE: No, I think it was the—it wasn’t one of Pat Foye's emails, but I think there was an earlier story than that. But—

QUESTION: (Off mic.)

CHRISTIE: I don’t remember exactly.

QUESTION: [Off mic] it was about the traffic, though.

CHRISTIE: Something about the traffic, yeah.

QUESTION: And why didn't you respond then, especially after the Foye email, around all this stuff about emergency services— [off mic]?

CHRISTIE: I—we did. No, we did. And we were told it was a traffic study.

QUESTION: Yeah, but they tell you it's a traffic study, but the mayor is saying the ambulances can't get— [off mic].

CHRISTIE: And we were told that they did a traffic study where they did not want a normal flow of traffic to be interrupted so that the traffic study would be a valid one. That's what we were told. And so we did respond. We asked them, and that's how we responded. You know, and again, I'm not somebody who's going to be, you know, getting into the details of a traffic study and whether one is done appropriately or inappropriately, certainly at that time.

And I can tell you that at that first moment, that's when I became aware that there was some issue. But I didn't even at that point delve into it. It was not something that I was personally delving into.

That may be totally bogus. It could all be untrue. But in those exchanges, Christie is describing a process in which “we” inquired about what happened after reading about the Foye email. (You’ll note he says that he didn’t personally delve into it.)

In an earlier exchange at that presser, he seemed to be describing the same process, explicitly saying that he didn’t make the inquiry himself:

QUESTION: Why didn't you check back [off mic]? You never called him to see—

CHRISTIE: I never called him personally, no. But Baroni's position continued to be that there was a traffic study, and he had a disagreement with Pat Foye about that. So, you know, they had a disagreement. That was pretty clear. And I didn't think Bill Baroni was going to change his mind, because Pat Foye had already expressed those concerns in earlier written documents that he had—not he, but that someone had put out to the press.

On Monday night, Christie described this same process, adding a bit more detail. What he’s saying may not be true. But a person isn’t “changing his story” when he simply adds additional detail to a claim he has already made.

It isn’t odd when that occurs. It isn’t a whole new story.

Maddow was playing the dumbest form of scandal culture politics. This is the oldest, best known scam in the book. Everyone knows how this bullshit works:

You wait for your target to tell a story several different times. Then, you search for minor differences in the ways the story was told. Maddow is scamming her viewers here, as she’s been doing all week.

This has been a week that was in the cable coverage of these events. Maddow has become an embarrassment in the headlong way she has pursued the thrill of scandal culture.

Christie may be guilty as sin. You can see that Maddow is.

On the brighter side, she’s being paid $7 million to entertain viewers this way.