It Ain't the F%$#-Up, It's the Cover-Up

 Remember yesterday, when I wrote about how a crony of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie closed entry lanes on the George Washington Bridge in what appeared to be retribution for the (Democratic) mayor of Fort Lee, NJ for not endorsing him?

Well, I figured that this was an instance of some underling deciding to take initiative, kind of like when Nixon was in the White House, when he would rant in private, and say something like, "Someone should shoot that SOB," and aide Chuck Coleson would go and buy a gun.

It's one of the problems that one can have with evil minions. Sometimes they are too enthusiastic.

Well, maybe not so much.  Because it has now been revealed that Governor Christie made a private call to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asking him to instruct the head of the Port Authority to quash the investigation:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week to complain about a Cuomo appointee's handling of a growing controversy over traffic pattern changes on the George Washington Bridge, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Christie, a Republican, complained in a private phone call to Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, that Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was pressing too hard to get to the bottom of why the number of toll lanes onto the bridge from Fort Lee, N.J. was cut from three to one in early September, according to this person. The lane closures occurred without notice to local authorities, officials have said, and snarled traffic for a week in the small borough on the Hudson River bluffs.

Messrs. Cuomo and Christie share control of the Port Authority, which oversees Hudson River bridges and tunnels and the region's airports and is rebuilding the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan.

Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey have accused Christie appointees of ordering the lane closures to punish Fort Lee's mayor, Democrat Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing the governor's re-election campaign. Mr. Christie's campaign has denied that, and his Port Authority team has said the lanes were closed to study traffic on the bridge.

A spokesman for Mr. Christie said the governor talks to Mr. Cuomo regularly "on any number of mutual-interest topics. Those conversations are private."

A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to comment.

The call between the governors was an illustration of how the controversy has mushroomed into a headache for Mr. Christie. One of his top representatives at the authority, David Wildstein, resigned last week, citing the bridge closures. Democratic calls for the resignation of another top authority aide, Bill Baroni, have escalated this week.

It wasn't clear how Mr. Cuomo responded to Mr. Christie's call or if it was the first time Mr. Christie had lodged a complaint.

The exchange appears to stand in contrast to Mr. Christie's public remarks on the bridge matter. At a briefing on Dec. 2, the governor mocked a legislative inquiry on the lane closures and joked that he himself had moved the traffic cones that winnowed local access to the bridge.

The perspective on this whole matter has just shifted.

Yesterday, the conventional wisdom was, "Why did Christie hire such a stupid motherF%$#er?"

Today, the question is, "What does Chris Christie have to hide?"