JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Did I really say in this space, a few days ago, that I would consider voting for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for president?

Did I really call his Jan. 9, marathon press conference (where he painted himself as the victim, in the Bridgegate scandal, of run-amok staff members) “a bravura performance”?

And did I say that I believed him when he painted himself as the unknowing victim in the Bridgegate scandal…when he claimed that run-amok staff members orchestrated the September closing of two lanes of the George Washington Bridge into New York City?

Well, shiver me timbers I guess I did because there is convincing electronic evidence to prove it.

But, but…I’m wiser now, I swear to you. I’ve heard and read a lot more about Gov. Christie and the evolving Bridgegate situation, and I was wondering…would you let me take back those blusterous, ill-conceived words from last week?

…..Oh, come on, now! We all know this blogging isn’t real journalism. It’s not like this stuff appears in black and white in the KC Star, where hundreds of thousands of people (well, maybe tens of thousands) chew on it with breakfast, put it down and say:

“Yep, that’s the whole story…JimmyC just said it right here in The Kansas City Star!”

Under those circumstances it’s a lot harder to reel your errant commentary back in…You gotta get with the editors and clear the way to do a follow-up column, where you delicately try to shroud the stench from the steaming pile you’ve left in hundreds of thousands (seems like millions at that point) of front yards.

**

The blowback from my swoon over Christie’s news-conference performance started within minutes, when I got an email from a friend and former KC Star co-worker.

“C’mon!” wrote my friend, who declined to be quoted by name for personal reasons. “When did you hang up your skeptometer? There was no way he did not know. At the very least, he created a climate of petty vindictiveness that allowed his stooges..to assume it was OK to shut down those access lanes.”

A day later, New York Times Op-Ed columnist Gail Collins weighed in with a funny and biting column castigating the manner in which Christie took “full responsibility” for the debacle, even while claiming he was completely in the dark.

Collins wrote:

“Here we have an echo of Harry Truman’s announcement that ‘the buck stops here.’ However, Christie took the more modern approach, which is to make it clear that while you’re responsible, you are totally not at fault. The buck that stopped at Christie’s desk was not his buck, just an errant piece of currency that wound up in the office because of treacherous fools over whom he had no actual control whatsoever.”

Then, yesterday, the news hit that Christie had hired a former assistant U.S. attorney in New York “to assist with the internal investigation into the George Washington Bridge scandal.”

You’ve got to wonder, don’t you, if he’s hiring a former prosecutor to root out the facts or try to cover them up?

Then, this morning, the Associated Press reported that David Wildstein, a good friend of Christie and the former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official who apparently engineered the lane closings, is ready to tell what he knows if he is granted immunity from prosecution.

And how could you blame Wildstein after Christie dismissed and ended their friendship of 30-some years by saying: “David and I were not friends in high school…We didn’t travel in the same circles in high school. You know, I was the class president and athlete. I don’t know what David was doing during that time.”

Gail Collins’ reaction to that was, “Ouch!”

But it might well be Wildstein who delivers the last “Ouch!”

**

The nail that sealed the coffin on my “Christie is brilliant” post came from another New York Times Op-Ed columnist, Timothy Egan.

In a column posted today, Egan expounded on the notion, put forth by Fox News’ Brit Hume, that Christie is “an old-fashioned guy’s guy,” who constantly runs the risk, in Hume’s words, of “slipping out and saying something that’s going to get you in trouble and make you look like a sexist or make you look like you seem thuggish or whatever.”

It’s that “guy’s guy,” thing — Christie’s seeming lack of political correctness and his willingness to speak candidly — that appeals to a lot of people…including me, I have to admit.

But Egan highlighted the inherent danger of the “guy’s guy” culture. What old-school political devotees might see as toughness and genuineness, he said, many others will see as being “insensitive to people in general.”

Unfortunately for Christie — but perhaps fortunately for the country — the national impression is now starting to tilt toward Christie simply being an insensitive person who is trying to bluff his way to the presidency with a refreshing personality and an affected sense of openness.

So, I guess he tricked me…And it’s probably going to cost me, because I accepted my former KC Star colleague’s bet of dinner and drinks that Christie eventually would be exposed as a liar on Bridgegate.

Luckily, my buddy’s a down to earth guy — kind of like Chris Christie in that sense — and I’ll probably be able to get off with hummus, pita and a “brew of the day” at 75th Street Brewery.