How easy it is for Chris Christie to confuse the omnipresence of a thing with the omnipotence of the Creator of all things, for the logo shines like Logos and the words read like the Word, offering food for the hungry and comfort for the weary. And yet the signs do not foretell a time for rebuilding or the end of time itself, as redemption isn’t near. Now is, however, the time to tell Christie the truth: that the lights in the arches are not the lights in the arch of heaven; that feeding many isn’t the same as feeding the multitude; that the letter in lights is an “M” for McDonald’s, not proof that Christie is the Messiah.
Here’s a man who shouldn’t be president. Here’s a man who doesn’t—surprise—weigh his words, or understand how he makes words mean so many different things. Here’s a narcissist who calls Donald Trump a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog,” and in the next breath acts like one: a wheezing, pneumonic carrier of swine flu.
Too bad no magic mirror exists to rebuke Christie’s penchant for self-serve (not soft-serve) ice cream and nachos, because the truth matters more than the truthiness of his slogan, “Because the truth matters.”
If the truth is less elastic than the waistband on Christie’s briefs, and no one—not even the evil washerman who insults Krishna—should have to touch a rag so dark and unholy, justice will prevail; justice must prevail, because what Christie has said about an American of Indian heritage is untrue.
Just to stay within the waters of the Yamuna and the Ganges Basin, the way Christie speaks when he talks about Sanjay Gupta is unsound. The way Christie uses “brown voice” to make Gupta sound like a valet—an obsequious manservant—is untoward.
Now, either Christie is deaf and sees Gupta the way he reads him on TV, in heavily accented closed-captioning, or he thinks all brown people, including Gupta, the American-born Mowgli of Michigan, speak Indian English. (Note to Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy: Do let this, the fact that Christie is an undiplomatic, oafish, buffoon, get around.)
Were Christie not the self-anointed candidate of truth, his candidacy wouldn’t matter. But because he insists on telling his fellow citizens the hard truths, as he says in the introduction to his latest book, Republican Rescue, he should know the truth: that so much of what he thinks he knows, particularly about Ronald Reagan, isn’t so.
Because Christie also says he doesn’t need “yellowed newspaper clippings or history books” to remind him of what he knows, we have no duty to edit his concession speech (forthcoming) or ease his return to private life.
Our duty is to remember the emptiness of his campaign and the arrogance of his assertions, so we may receive wisdom and avoid the temptations of pride.
This much we pledge—not only because the truth matters but because it trumps all other matters.
