New Hampshire Paper Regrets Endorsing Chris Christie, Must Have Been Drunk

Sewing up the asshole vote

[contextly_sidebar id="oURhrDg2g11M6Q2LZVdlghS28oj3HSNX"]Sometimes you do really stupid stuff that seemed like a great idea at the time, but you come to regret: falling in love with a psycho who never returns your black T-shirt, getting a tattoo under your navel that says "Fun!" with an arrow pointing toward your swimsuit area, or endorsing Chris Christie for president in the New Hampshire primary. Now that Christie has endorsed Donald Trump, the rightwing publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader is having serious endorser's remorse. Monday, Joseph W. McQuaid ran an editorial expressing regret for having backed Christie. We hear he's made an appointment to get that tattoo lasered off, too.

Here, have a sample of the Sad:

Despite his baggage, we thought that as a Republican governor in a Democratic-leading state he had the skills and experience the presidency needs (and hasn’t had of late). We also thought he had the best chance to take on and face down Donald Trump.

Watching Christie kiss the Donald’s ring this weekend -- and make excuses for the man Christie himself had said was unfit for the presidency -- demonstrated how wrong we were. Rather than standing up to the bully, Christie bent his knee. In doing so, he rejected the very principles of his campaign that attracted our support.

[contextly_sidebar id="3NFly2ivFbFcYXcUAQF8wlYlzgWUSDsR"]Awww. In December, Trump called McQuaid a "real lowlife" and Chris Christie's "puppet," so you can see why the publisher might feel a little betrayed by seeing Trump get Christie's love. In the editorial, McQuaid bitterly writes, "Voters here apparently knew better than we" and hopes in vain that Christie's hypocrisy in turning back on a vow that he'd never endorse Trump "might wake up some Trump fans," which is pretty cute. If Trump fans aren't put off by anendorsement from David Duke, they're certainly not going to have second thoughts just because Chris Christie decided it would be more fun to be a Trump surrogate than return to run the state where everyone hates him now.

McQuaid's rueful retraction was nothing compared with the contortions Christie himself did on the teevee Sunday, where he desperately tried to explain to George Stephanopoulos why there wasn't anything particularly unusual about his sudden love for a guy he'd spent months ridiculing. Here's the whole cringe-inducing mess:

Christie is actually far more flexible than you'd think here -- physical attributes aside, he could give Nadia Comaneci some real competition. It's an impressively embarrassing parade of baldfaced doublespeak, as Christie cheerfully dismisses clip after clip of himself criticizing Trump.

Stephanopoulos reads Christie's former finance co-chair Meg Whitman's condemnation to him: "Chris Christie’s endorsement of Donald Trump is an astonishing display of political opportunism. Donald Trump is unfit to be president." Then Christie swallows that shit sandwich and pronounces it DELICIOUS:

I love Meg Whitman. She's a great friend to me and to Mary Pat, always has been. We obviously, from that statement, have a difference of political opinion. And that's OK. That's what makes this country great is that people can have differences of political opinion.

And so Meg has always been free to express her views and I honor her. And we absolutely adore our relationship with her and I'm sure it'll continue.

Thank you, sir, may I have another? And on it goes: a clip of Christie mocking Trump's plan to make Mexico pay for that border wall and asking, "How is he going to make the Mexicans pay for the wall? How? They are a sovereign nation."

Christie's explanation now? Easy peasy deporteesy!

Christie: The answer is he will do it --

Stephanopoulos: How?

Christie: -- the fact -- the fact is that he's going to have to answer that question. And he will.

Look, he just will. Christie has been assimilated into the Trump Collective, and he's OK with not having the answers right now. Trump's his man, and he will make Mexico pay, because he's a great negotiator and stuff. It's beautifully absurd theater, as Stephanopoulos keeps repeating Christie's own question, "How?" and Christie has no answer at all, except that Trump is strong like bull and will leverage our trade relationship to make Mexico get in line on immigration, somehow. He just will, OK?

Same thing for banning Muslims from entering the country. A Christie clip from the Olden Times (Jan. 21) shows him calling the idea "ridiculous," saying it's not needed to keep America safe and "when Donald Trump said that, he was dead wrong. And he's dead wrong now." And now, an entire month later, everything's fine with Trump's Muslim ban, because he'll allow citizens to re-enter the country, which makes all the difference and proves Trump is Tough On National Security. Also, why do the media have to be SO UNFAIR to Trump about this one itty bitty part of his larger national security plan (which consists of saying we'll be very, very tough and take ISIS's oil):

So let's not just take one section of it and make that the entire national security policy. There's been a lot of other conversations about it.

And by the way, I'll continue to have conversations with him about this as the campaign goes forward, to be able to make all of these things more fulsome.

[contextly_sidebar id="k69SiB7asBalgsM41uxSQXf5BvcUecQh"]Yes, we threw that last bit in exclusively for you Usage Nazis to grind your teeth over. Besides, back when Christie was competing with Trump to be the biggest possible dick on immigration, he wanted to have FedEx use barcodes to track foreigners visiting the country. Also, Christie is no longer bothered that Trump saw invisible Muslims dancing in the streets on 9/11. It's just not a concern anymore, because Trump "can be trusted, this is a guy who, when he makes promises, he keeps them." So there.

Christie's pro-Trump dance was so bizarre that when he announced Monday he'd be holding a press conference that afternoon, there was some Twitter speculation that maybe he was going to retract his endorsement and blame it all on a Tijuana mushrooms and tequila binge, but instead, he announced the appointment of a new justice to the state supreme court and refused to take any questions at all on Trump, because they were "off-topic."

Yr Wonkette is enjoying this entirely too much. We can hardly wait until Chris Christie changes course again and insists on some future talk show that there's no contradiction at all between his new political love and those old clips from the Stephanopoulos interview. We also want to know whether he got "Make America Great Again" tattooed on his right or left cheek.

[ New Hampshire Union Leader / NJ.com / ABC News / HuffPo / Gothamist / The Hill ]