Greetings, 99%! I hope you will enjoy my sharing with you this week's cartoon based, of course, on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who recently announced that he is running for President. He has been beastly for a long time, continues to be beastly, and has surely earned his turn as one of Les Beastiables.

NOTE FOR NEW READERS: This series features a new Les Beastiables cartoon every Wednesday about 1:30-1:45 PM Eastern on Daily Kos, Friday afternoons here. We indulge in a little Franglish because the French are tres classy. But I digresse.

For the serious story behind the cartoon lampoon, please read on while we make the beastie squirm on the hot seat. Then you'll be able to "cleanse your palate" with cute chimp photos before you leave.

Christie appeared on "Fox News Sunday" on July 5, 2015, interviewed gently by Shannon Bream (tough questions apparently being gone with the good old days):

You may have several cringeage moments if you watch the whole thing. But regarding Bridgegate, as addressed by today's cartoon, from 14:20 to 15:40 Christie said the following (transcribed by myself):

You just have to say to the people again who are watching this morning, three different investigations have verified exactly what I said the day after this incident happened, that I had no knowledge of it and absolutely nothing to do with it. And you know what happens when the media, Shannon, gets crazy over a story like they got crazy over Bridgegate and were convicting me the day afterwards of heinous acts, now when they realize that there is no truth to what they said, now they say "Oh, he didn't do anything, but he created an atmosphere"; well you know, that's what the liberal media does rather than saying "I'm sorry," which is what they should say. Listen, I'm accountable because it happened on my watch and I apologized the next day to the people of New Jersey for that happening on my watch. But in the end, when you have a government of 60,000 people, you can't make sure that every person does what you want them to do every day, but when they do something you don't want them to do, you fire them, which is exactly what I did; and then you cooperate fully with every investigation, which is exactly what I did. And when you're exonerated, then the people who wrongly accused you should have the guts to stand up and say "I'm sorry". But of course these people don't do that. I have apologized to the people of New Jersey for putting those people in the position to be able to do what they did, but I will tell you something, I am not going to allow people to mischaracterize my public record over false allegations, and that's exactly what these were.

Exonerated by three different investigations? Really!

According to Politico, among others, the three investigations were by the U.S. Attorney, the Democratic legislature, and Christie's own administration. Sure, the administration hired an outside law firm, but Christie and his ilk decided who to hire, then the taxpayers paid for them.

So let's turn to NJ.com for a knowledgeable response. For those of us who live outside New Jersey, NJ.com "is New Jersey's largest website for local news, sports, entertainment, jobs, autos, real estate and information, affiliated with 12 New Jersey newspapers" around the state.

Below are excerpts from Paul Mulshine's brilliant rebuttal, Chris Christie's sorry excuse for Bridgegate: It wasn't the media who covered it up all that time. The full article is well worth a read; for that, please follow the link.

Christie apologized to the people of New Jersey the very next day after the bridge lane closures?

I was at that press conference when Christie tried to laugh off those lane closures in Fort Lee by quipping, "I worked the cones"....

That press conference was Dec. 2, 2013,....

Wait a minute. The lane closures began on Sept. 9 and ended Sept. 13, 2013.

The media mischaracterized his record? Or Christie mischaracterized his own record?

Remember, per Christie, "three different investigations have verified exactly what I said the day after this incident happened, that I had no knowledge of it and absolutely nothing to do with it".

So here's study number one:

The most important was by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. He got a guilty plea from one Christie appointee and indictments against two others.... At a press conference after the indictments were released, Fishman was asked whether Christie had been cleared.

"I am not sure what that means so I really can't answer that question," he replied.

Study number two:

Then there was the report of that joint legislative committee on Bridgegate. It was so critical of the governor that his allies on the committee issued a massive rebuttal.

Study number three:

That leaves the third report, a 360-page effort compiled at the administration's behest by the law firm of Gibson Dunn. The so-called "Mastro Report" says nothing about what Christie did on Sept. 14, 2013. But it says plenty about how his staffers worked like crazy to spin the media into believing there was a legitimate traffic study....

The study, which cost the state $8 million....

"The Mastro Report would have you believe these people were freelancing in some effort to impress the boss," Critchley said. "But if you have ever ventured into the governor's office, regardless of party affiliation, you would find that's just unbelievable."...

What we taxpayers got for our $8 million amounts to an oversized press release.

The Mr. Critchley quoted above is a lawyer for one of the defendants indicted in the investigation.

So, is the continuing damage to Governor Christie's reputation the fault of the media, liberal or otherwise?

In fact, the media were very compliant with Christie's main goal in spinning this story. That was to assert that he's off the hook as long as he didn't know about closing in advance. The point of that 360-page Mastro Report was to set the bar that low and then say Christie had cleared.

In fact, as I noted above, Christie was up to his ears in the cover-up. That's the real story the media missed, or at least the out-of-state media.

So concludes Mr. Mulshine.

I followed up on more information regarding the legislative report only to find, surprise surprise, that Christie's idea of "cooperate fully" does not seem to fit the generally accepted definition. According to CBS New York:

["Wisniewski" is "Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville), who co-chairs the Joint Legislative Committee on Investigations"]

After millions of dollars spent, Wisniewski said the new report, which reads in an encyclopedia, provides no answers because everyone allegedly involved refuses to talk.

“We don’t really have a lot of information, because we have not been able to, in some cases, get documents from them, or in other cases, get testimony,” Wisniewski said.

“The governor was not entirely candid when he talked about what he knew. Individuals in the governor’s administration were not entirely candid when they testified,” Wisniewski told WCBS 880’s Sean Adams.

Republicans said they are outnumbered by Democrats on the committee, and called it all a waste of money since the U.S. Attorney is also investigating Bridgegate.

So it was a dud of an investigation because they couldn't force people to testify truthfully; but move along, nothing to see here, the U.S. Attorney is still investigating.

Looks like we're down to one objective investigation that, at its conclusion, stated they could not answer the question of whether or not the Governor was cleared. Exonerated? Christie seems to have his own idiosyncratic definition of that word, as well.

Please join me in my mission to expose the stupid and ugly in our public figures. Beastliness remembered is beastliness held accountable. We will never forget. But we will have some laughs along the way. Please feel free to discuss.

As promised, just for fun are photos of chimpanzees and their pets!

Please consider this an open thread. Feel free to comment below on this or other topics and post your own links.

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