Christie Uses Nixon Playbook

Elizabeth Drew: “During the 1973 Watergate hearings, Howard Baker, the Republican Senate leader and a close ally of the Nixon White House, asked repeatedly, ‘What did the president know and when did he know it?’ This was and continues to be widely seen as the definitive way to establish a political leader’s innocence or guilt of misdeeds within his administration. And so the question is now being echoed in the case of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, in particular on television–it has even led a national network news broadcast. This is a big break for Christie.”

“Christie himself has helped set up this question–leading reporters on a merry chase to pin down precisely what he knew when about the infamous closing of two of the three traffic lanes leading into the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee, New Jersey for four days last September… But this isn’t really the issue. The issue is whether the governor can be held accountable for what happened at very high levels in his administration.”