Chris Christie's Book of Hubris - by the NYT Editorial Board

After a disastrous showing in the Republican presidential primaries and getting booted from the Trump transition team, Gov. Chris Christie returned home last month to the comfort of his power base in Trenton, only to find old statehouse allies brandishing pitchforks and torches, not the legislative favors he had hoped for.

On Dec. 20, lawmakers rejected a measure that would have relaxed state ethics law so that Mr. Christie, who has served for seven years, could profit from a book deal during his last year in office. They also denied salary increases for Mr. Christie’s cabinet members and other officials that would have cost about $10 million a year. And they rejected Mr. Christie’s “revenge bill,” which would have ended the government’s obligation to place paid legal notices in local newspapers, including those that had bedeviled the governor during the Bridgegate scandal.

The defeat certainly provides fresh material for an honest memoir, but Mr. Christie, suffering the lowest popularity ratings of his career, is not likely to tell all. Too bad, because it’s a spellbinding tale of political hubris — Mr. Christie cynically shifting roles from tough-talking rival of Donald Trump to fawning acolyte after Mr. Christie’s own candidacy failed. The governor soon was described in news accounts as Mr. Trump’s traveling “manservant,” and was caught in TV moments with a facial expression somewhere between ennui and adoration as he stood silently awaiting his future at Mr. Trump’s side.

A gripping chapter would be Mr. Christie’s account of how he suddenly fell from grace as chief of Mr. Trump’s transition, a post with enormous patronage power that evaporated without even a tweet from Mr. Trump about his being just another loser. (Allies of Mr. Christie say he holds out hope that Mr. Trump will turn back to him with a job when the governance gets tough.)

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/opinion/sunday/chris-christies-book-of-hubris.html?emc=edit_th_20170101&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284&_r=0