Chris Christie Keeps Defending Obama, and is Losing Republican Supporters As He Does So

A recent video by the NRA accused the Obama administration of hypocrisy over his response to the NRA's call to put armed guards in schools. Jay Carney, White House press secretary, struck back at the NRA, stating, "Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight."

On Thursday, Chris Christie weighed in. Continuing a recent trend, he took the president's side in the argument, calling the NRA's ad "reprehensible."

I supported Christie when he praised Obama and gave him a nice photo op during Hurricane Sandy. At the most cynical level, you could argue that Christie was doing it for the clean-up money he wouldn't get otherwise, and at best, Obama may have actually done a really great job. (It was probably somewhere in the middle.) New Jersey, despite taking the lion's share of the damage, has been much more successful in its recovery efforts than Mario Cuomo's New York, which saw not only rampant looting, but residents without power or even food and water for weeks after the storm.

Then Christie lambasted Speaker of the House Jon Boehner (R-Ohio) for neglecting to vote on the Hurricane Sandy Relief bill. I'll admit, I was annoyed that bill was tabled for a couple days too. However, what irked me with Christie, as well as the other Republicans from the New York City area all undoubtedly trying to score political points, was the one-sidedness of their criticism.

The proposed Sandy relief bill was loaded down with pork spending, tacked on by members of the Senate (mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans too). In the original $60 billion spending bill Christie was referring to, $24 billion, nearly half, was allotted for special interest projects that had nothing to do with Hurricane Sandy, and in fact, didn't even have anything to do with the East Coast of the USA in many instances. As Darrel Issa said, Democrats "packed it with pork" and "then dared us not to vote on it."

Yet, rather than face reality, which is that members of the Senate shamelessly used the urgency of the Hurricane Sandy disaster to shield their pet projects from scrutiny, Christie instead went after John Boehner and House Republicans who chose not to waste time on a bill destined to fail and instead focus on the impending fiscal cliff disaster, which we thankfully dodged at the 11th hour once again. 

In my book, that was strike one for Chris Christie. I could give him the Obama photo-op days before the election, but to blatantly ignore reality and throw your own team under the bus (I'd even forgive that if they actually deserved it!) and create false outrage over something you knew full well would be taken care of in a few days anyway is what is really "reprehensible."

Despite Christie, the resoluteness of the Republicans paid off. The House passed a $50 billion dollar spending bill, and almost all $50 billion is going to Sandy relief, almost double the original money New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut were promised, and barely any pork at all by comparison.

But now Christie is attacking the party once again, this time creating false outrage about an NRA ad which any reasonable person would look at and determine wasn't an attack on Obama's parenting skills or his children. Is the NRA wrong? Perhaps, but this is hardly the sort of "reprehensible" personal attacks on family for which we usually reserve our outrage.

The fact of the matter is, the NRA suggested armed guards for students. Obama, who obviously has no problem at all when armed guards are protecting his own children, not only chided the NRA and expressed his "elitist" skepticism ... but then did a complete turnaround and presented the possibility of armed guards in schools as a viable option as part of his 23 executive orders (which were more like inter-office memos than actual orders). And all of these shenanigans happened before Christie got on TV to lambast the NRA for daring to suggest that what is right for Obama's kids should be right for our own as well.

Governor Christie, strike two. You'll still have my vote for governor in 2013, but if you want to stand a chance in the 2015 primaries and have that epic New Jersey vs. New York presidential showdown when you go up against Cuomo in 2016 that we're all secretly hoping for, you need to remember which letter comes after your name.

Bluntly stating the truth is one thing. But there is neither truth, nor party loyalty, nor frankly reason to what you've been saying or doing as of late. In your own words, "knock it off," and get serious.