Christie's Room(s) at the Inn

Update: Hotwire lays out the trips; Blue Jersey promoted a thoughtful comparison between Christie and Sharpe James.

I'm going to flat out say it, Chris Christie is not the sharpest politician in the world.

From the AP:

On trips in 2007 and 2008, his top deputy, Michele Brown, also exceeded the guidelines after Christie approved her requests for rooms in the same five-star hotels where he was booked.

The vouchers show Christie and Brown stayed at the NineZero Hotel in Boston on Oct. 16, 2007 and each billed taxpayers $449 plus taxes and fees for their rooms, more than double the government allowance for a Boston hotel room at the time, according to a General Services Administration travel reimbursement table.

You can't claim to be fiscally conservative, and then act like it only applies to everyone else. To make matters worse, in addition to Christie taking taxpayers for a ride, Christie approved his assistant doing it, too.

In fairness to Christie, he's said he couldn't find a room. Although the Red Sox were playing in the playoffs that night (was he there?) and Tori Amos was in town (or there?), it's unlikely every affordable hotel in Boston was booked on a Tuesday night. In fact, Christie has a demonstrated history of this sort of blatant waste, exceeding federal limits on 87.5% of his trips.

Then, going back to things you should think about, the AP article points out some interesting timing:

Christie made a mortgage loan to Brown five days after they returned from Boston, on Oct. 22, 2007. He failed to report the loan on federal ethics forms and on his 2007 federal income tax returns, omissions he later described as a mistake. Brown has since resigned and joined a private law firm.

While no one is saying that Christie and Brown have had an affair, he should have realized at some point in time, such a coincidence in timing would sow seeds of doubt in the public's mind.

So not only does he abuse taxpayer dollars, he doesn't think.

New Jersey has a long and sorry history of politicians who don't think, which is part of the reason we're in the mess we're in. While people are already seem burned out over the campaign, it will be interesting to see how the public reacts.