Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland has been very outspoken when it comes to Chris Christie's Bridgegate scandal.
“I’m suggesting two things, two possibilities: Either the governor knew and he is lying, or he is the most inept, incompetent chief executive imaginable,” Strickland said at a press conference this morning arranged by the Democratic National Committee...
And for some reason Fox News' Chris Wallace didn't like that at all. Here's what he said today to Gov. Strickland.
WALLACE: All right. Gentlemen, let's move on to Chris Christie and quite frankly, Governor, to your comments this week when you shadowed Chris Christie to Chicago when he was speaking at the Chicago Economic Club about Christie's role in the closings of those bridge lanes to the George Washington Bridge.
Here's what you had to say.
BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STRICKLAND: Either the governor knew and he is lying, or he is the most inept, incompetent chief executive imaginable.(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Governor, two questions. First of all, why are you shadowing Chris Christie two-plus years before a campaign? And isn't it possible, as he claims, that he just didn't know?STRICKLAND: Well, Chris, Bridget Kelly was his deputy chief of staff. He fired her because he said she lied to him. But he didn't ask her why she sent that e-mail or who urged her or told her to send that e-mail.
That's just unbelievable. I cannot believe that a governor, and I've been one, and I've had, you know, a close staff and we worked together on a daily basis, why didn't he ask her why she sent that e- mail, and try to find out why and who told her to do that? She obviously didn't do that on her own.And that's just one of the many issues that I think need to be answered and addressed in this controversy.
WALLACE: Why are you shadowing Chris Christie two-plus years before he's even a candidate?
STRICKLAND: Well, because he's been put out there by the Republican Party as the leading candidate for the presidency in terms of the Republican nominee. And so, he is a national figure. He is described himself as a national figure. And he's the head of the RGA. And, quite frankly, what he does is a broader concern than simply being the governor of New Jersey. He has been and hopes to be, I guess, the front-runner for the Republican Party in 2016.
Strickland's responses were on the mark, but what's it to Wallace if Strickland is indeed "shadowing" Chris Christie? When Wallace or Republicans "shadow" Democratic politicians, he's never had a problem with that.
Chris Wallace has spent a lot of time having Republicans on his show "shadowing" Hillary Clinton on every little detail of her life, especially since Benghazi that this question to Strickland was very puzzling. Wallace even brought up the very tame Hillary Papers on his show today to rekindle the Clinton smear years. Obviously, Fox News is trying to mitigate the damage that Strickland is causing Christie because he's making good points against the embattled governor from New Jersey, but still, it was a very odd sequence.
Next up came Karl Rove and he took to smearing Gov. Strickland to the next level. I'll have that posted shortly.
