Chris Christie: “take out the bat” on legislator; teachers “use students like drug mules”

by David Safier

I've got someone other than Russell Pearce to pick on this morning. New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie.

Christie was upset at the press for not going after a Democratic lawmaker more aggressively. His statement during a news conference:

“Can you guys please take the bat out on her for once?”

State Senator Loretta Weinberg called Christie a hypocrite. Reason enough in his mind, I guess, for the media to "take the bat out on her." She happens to be a grandmother and a widow.

But for me, Christie's most offensive line was in April, 2010. He advised voters to vote down school budgets if teachers didn't agree to a wage freeze and increased contributions to their health insurance. While he was using his bully pulpit — and for Christie, "bully" is the proper term — to tell people how to vote, he accused teachers of trying to influence the election, citing a third grade teacher assigning her students to ask parents if they were planning to vote, and why. It was part of a larger "Project Democracy" curriculum which had been going on for awhile, but never mind. According to Christie, the teachers' union was "using the students like drug mules."

The level of demonization in that line, that a teacher who does something you don't agree with in the classroom is metaphorically supplying students with drugs, astounds me. Unbelievably hateful, educationally destructive words from the governor of the state. I'll bet he refers to himself as "pro education."