Frank Bruni was a Morning Joe guest because of a piece he just wrote about Chris Christie's little beach party the other day, and Mika started off reading the piece:
"You write in the New York Times about Chris Christie's tutorial and hubris. 'As Chris Christie took in the sun, he doled out a lesson, the same one that Donald Trump is delivering on a daily basis and in a grander fashion: Beware the politician who doesn't give a damn for decorum,' " Mika read.
" 'Make no mistake, for all their flamboyant pugnaciousness, the Christies and the Trumps of the political world are chasing adulation every bit as much as their peers are, maybe more so. They're just taking a deliberately muddier route, and if they don't get there, they're more likely to wear their failure as a badge of honor and to dig in with a destructive arrogance.
" 'They show that if you embrace a politician who talks too frequently and proudly about not caring what anyone thinks, you'll wind up in the clutch of a politician whose last refuge is not caring what anyone thinks, and that is a dangerous place to be,' " she concluded.
"I just think it's kind of rude. That beach was closed," she said, addressing Christie.
"Why do you think you're better than everybody else? Why do you think you work harder than everybody else? Why do you think your family gets more than the other families along that beach? I don't get it. What's that?"
"There is a bigger thing here," Bruni said.
"When we find so romantic politicians who buck convention and are irreverent, that's good to a point. You want people to challenge the status quo but some of the politicians, Christie and Trump a great example, go too far.
"They take not caring what you think or punitively not caring what you think as a badge of honor and behave in ways that undercut their leadership, and undercut people serving them."
"He went to Orlando during a huge hurricane, 'I need to be with my family,' " Mika said. "So did everybody in your state who was snowed in and getting into accidents on your highways.
"I don't get it. That's just someone who doesn't care about his job."
